Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Writing with my students

I had a dog when I was younger. It's hard to describe this particular dog. One way would be to say he looked like he was constipated and listening to someone speaking a foreign language while looking at a crispy, juicy piece of pig's meat. That is to say, he was very unusual looking.

I called him "Opposite". Why did I call him this? Well, that's easy. Because no matter what he was told to do, he ALWAYS did the OPPOSITE thing. If I said, "Opposite! Come!" He would go the other way. If I said, "Opposite! Sit!" He would do a paw stand. In other words, Opposite seemed to be determined to make humans confused! We wondered, "Why doesn't he do what he is told?" I took him to Obedience School. That didn't work. The reason was, well, he always did the opposite of what the instructor told him to do. I tried giving him treats when he did the right thing. The problem was, he NEVER did the right thing! So, he got no treats. I even called "The Dog Whisperer" from television. Do you know what he told me? He said that Opposite was a hopeless case.

I even took foreign language classes in case Opposite understood another language! Nope. Nothing worked. Finally, my friend Johnny said, "Why don't you try telling him to do the OPPOSITE of what you want him to do?" I thought that was an amazing idea! How simple! I decided to give it a try.

I began with an easy command. I said," Opposite, sit!" He didn't. So, I said, "Opposite, do NOT sit!" What do you know? He sat right down on his bottom! For that, he got a tasty treat. I decided that might be just coincidence, so I tried another command. I said, "Opposite, do NOT roll over." What did he do? He rolled right across the room!

I guess that shows that even if you can't teach a dog new tricks, sometimes, the dog can teach YOU new tricks!