Dog Star

I brought Rocket out of the Dog Trick closet today. I took him into the front yard! There were witnesses to his rolling. I felt embarrassed  when the neighbors commented positively on what we were doing and I don't know why. I should be proud, its work to get  a dog to do what he does.

I've worked with him all this time in the backyard before we graduated to the  driveway - blocked by the car in the driveway and after we graduated to the side yard, again blocked by the car. But twice a day day every day, for weeks? Didn't they notice something was going on? I hadn't thought that people afforded us that much privacy. I mean, we aren't invisible  and when he's on his back legs, he is just a little shorter than I am.

He still propels the barrel primarily with his front paws and he needs to be using his back feet to make the barrell move. He needs to use his back feet to move himself because there are other things he could learn to propel if he could figure out pushing. It would be neat if he could learn to push a grocery basket, I would have to score a grocery basket first but those are common out in the world, one of the a smaller ones would be better though, but those are new and the homeless people don't steal those because they are too small. I wouldn't even have to steal it myself - but that is in the dog trick future. I'm not sure I want my dog to be a prop comic, its too hard to perform on just on a whim.

I need to find the weird circus that performs downtown at festivals and see how they feel about dog performers. At this point he is not one of these yet, but it would be neat to try. I wonder of its circus-y if he walks on a balance beam, he could you know, he all ready jumps through a hoop and climbs ladders. Note to self, look up the weird circus downtown and see if they have any openings in several months. Perhaps this is hubris.

We would be an easier circus sell if he could ride on the barrell... That would be the ultimate trick. That wouldn't come in second to an obedient dog.