(Our earlier training reports are posted on the Dog Training Diary Page.)

With the help of some Calabrese salami from Trader Joe, Arlo has approximated the command Lie Down well enough for me to consider it adequately learned, so we can move on to a new challenge for the trainee.

This weekend I met an enthusiastic Labradoodle's grandma who insisted that her granddog would follow hand signal commands given by a two-year-old. The dog, an apricot-colored charmer, as large as an Airedale, was reportedly to be currently working on a dog degree that was described as a Ph.D.

Now perhaps it was the Labrador talking, or training, but I have to think that the poodle potential had something to do with all that upper echelon obedience work. Anyway, I'm inspired to get back to some serious dog training here.

Tomorrow I'm going to look through the training books and pick out something more interesting than the usual stuff. If Arlo got to choose his subjects, he'd probably pick salsa dancing or advanced ball handling stunts to add to his repertoire of tossing, rolling, and using his front feet like a soccer player to move his miniature tennis ball.