Stupid Dog

When I was a teen, I had a dog that I spent quite a bit of time with. As a special project independent study for High School credit, I studied dog training. The dog I trained, Derringer, was the sole recipient of this knowledge and its attempted implementation. This dog was phenomenal. He had been trained to close doors, throw things away when instructed to do so, and knew an entire box of toys by name and could retrieve the named toy, and put the toys back in the box when told to do so. People were amazed at his abilities. Strangers would routinely stop their cars just to watch him leap and flip into the air while catching Frisbees. Not only did most people think the dog was impressive, the dog thought he was pretty impressive too. The dog was used to the routine of meeting a new person, showing off his repertoire, and receiving praise and admiration from everyone present. One time, however, the praise that Derringer thought was forthcoming from a particularly critical audience member did not arrive. Instead, 'Ted' was not at all impressed with the show the dog had just enthusiastically performed. Besides our family, there were two other people present in addition to Ted, both of which were duly impressed with Derringer and his routine. Noticing the cool reception, the dog began to take toys directly to Ted in an effort to get him to play, or at least be more friendly. The dog's friendly overtures were soundly rejected. Derringer just was not able to impress this man no matter how hard he tried. The other visitors, who were Ted's friends, were incredulous. They asked him, "Have you EVER seen a dog in person do this many tricks?" Ted answered, "No." They then asked him why he did not like the dog then. Ted said," It's not that I don't like the dog. It's just that he is ONLY a dog. Everything he knows he learned by repetition. I mean, it's not like he really KNOWS what he is doing, I mean he is ONLY A STUPID DOG." At this point, Derringer, who had appeared to be diligently listening to Ted, got up, walked over to where Ted was standing, and promptly started peeing on his leg. Stupid dog, huh? Yea, right.