I've had mostly smart dogs. I've had some average, but trainable dogs, and I have two right now who are what I affectionately call Inconveniently Smart Dogs.
Sofia gets up on my desk chair and puts her paws on the keyboard. When I do floor exercises she gets down on the floor and tries to do them, too. But this isn't a story about Sofia.
Ole takes his job as a therapy dog seriously. Most dogs need a job, and his is a) barking once every time he hears my neighbor slam her car door, and b) visiting people, doing tricks for them, and letting them pet him.
He will do this whether it's a therapy dog situation or not, which is why he is such a great therapy dog in general. When Sofia was being worked on at the vet clinic, Ole and I went to the waiting room, and before long, every single person, employee, customer, whomever, had received a good amount of dog therapy, plus other people were starting to have him do tricks.
Today was the Raven Jam, a community jam I started at our local retirement home. The place, coincidentally, where Ole has visited a total of TWICE in about four years. But an Elkhound never forgets.
The jam is two hours long, and the dogs wait in the car. They have a nice dog area in the back of my Flex. After the jam today I knew that both of them would appreciate a little walk outside to stretch legs and go pee. I always grab Sofia first, since she is a Houdini Husky, albeit at 15 she can still go like the wind if she feels like it. Ole is generally the good dog who waits a second for me to grab their leashes, and then they both jump out and all is well.
Today opened the car's hatch, grabbed Sofia as usual and before I could even take half a breath Ole was out like a shot!
The place is like a park, with snow (which Ole adores) and several acres of woods, and a very busy road not too far away. But where does Ole go? Straight into the retirement home and within seconds the automatic doors open and shut and I know he's gone in there to To His Job! I called out, "Don't worry, he's a therapy dog, he won't hurt anyone!"
I had Sofia out on a leash already, and she's not a therapy dog, so I was lucky that a friend of mine was able to run in there and try to catch up with him.
She found him visiting people in the dining room. No surprise there! No one was upset, least of all Ole. I guess he came right to her, even though she didn't know the magic word. ("Cookie.")
