Dial it down, boy

Here's a way to get more energy out of a recalcitrant dog: wave a bird wing under his nose.

A week or so ago, Susan W. slipped me a piece of fire hose with a pair of wings duct-taped on.  Yesterday evening, I pulled that setup out and figured on a 6 foot toss & retrieve.  Larsen was excited about the retrieve, to be sure, but he also slipped into his old keep-away habit.  Instead of a retrieve, he took off and ran around, settled down to pluck  the feathers, and overall guaranteed himself a JH flunk-out.   

That sure didn't work, so we left the relative freedom of the back yard and went to the screened porch. I hupped him.  I told him to take the wings.  Sure!  Why not?  He took the wings, hupped and held.  But, you could see the wheels turning as he tried to calculate if he could make a successful break to the freedom of the back yard.

Every time he even looked toward freedom, I ahemed him back to attention.  Finally, I would tell him to "drop it" (his release command).  Ever so slowly -- you could see the yin and yang working in the old noodle --  his jaws eased back and he gave me the wings.

We did this a bunch of times.

They say that you should keep things interesting and stop before you bore the dog, but I think Larsen could have done that wing tease all night long.  He wanted to keep playing as long as he got those feathers in his mouth.