Luci's diary: training and the garden run

Luci’s Diary. This strange activity called training’s such fun, or at least the treats are. And the nightly garden visit. And just who’s being trained. 

June 2015

The number 2 human keeps training me.

It’s wonderful – I just love it. There are about four things he wants me to do. I think I can just about cope with learning four things. He calls on me to do them and, because I can see he wants to feel he’s achieving something, sometimes I look at him as though I’m confused and it’s terribly hard, until he shows me what he wants – lie down, stand up, wait, or whatever. Sometimes I just do them anyway. Either way, I get a treat every time.

Fantastic. Money for old rope. Not that I have any use for money, of course. Or old rope either, come to that, but hey, I didn’t invent the expression.

I have to say that one of the things did take me a while to master: lying down. The word of command sounds like “plotz”. God knows why. “Wait” – well it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? “Stand” – yep, not a big problem either. But “plotz”?

It turns out it’s all down to human number 1. Misty the cat explained it all to me. She’s from a place called Alsace, where he comes from too, apparently, and “plotz” is what you say in Alsatian when you mean “lie down”.

How on Earth was I supposed to know that?

And – do the humans take me for an Alsatian? I’ve met Alsatians and let me tell you, there’s a bit of difference. Mostly in scale.

Anyway, Misty also says I ought to have more pride. Stand aloof from all this training business. Not be pushed around.

“We animals need to lay down some ground rules to the domestics.” That’s what he calls the humans. He reckons that letting them train us is accepting their rules instead. He may be right.

But.. but… there are treats at stake…

OK,  this is the Plotz thing, right?
So where's my treat?

I have to say the other day he got the treats out and I automatically went and did the plotz thing, before he could even ask. Just stronger than me. I thought he’d see through me and realise I was a jump ahead of him, just doing it for the treats, but he didn’t. He was pathetically pleased about it. Told Number 1 when she got home. Got her giggling.

So no harm done.

The other thing I like is the nightly garden run. It’s a little ritual we have now, number 2 and I. He doesn’t like it, but she always makes him do it.

“Does Luci need to be taken out?” he always asks.

“Yes,” she always replies.

Perhaps she ought to give him a treat so he gets it and learns to stop asking.

They seem not to have grasped that I use the cat flap. If I need to do my business, I pop out and do it. So this nightly outing’s just a a bit of fun. Some quality time number 2 and I can spend together before going to bed. I sniff around the flower beds and the vegetables, which is good, and he stands around looking pained and saying “go on, Luci, have a pee.”

He tries to make it sound quite affectionate, even though I can hear the exasperation building in the background.

Sometimes I force one out just to put him out of his misery. Other times I push him to see how long he can stand it, until he finally goes back in. Either way, it’s always amusing, and a good way to wrap up the evening.

Sets me up nicely to go jumping around the bed when they’re trying to get to sleep. They seem to think that’s adorable, which is just a joy. Personally, if someone behaved that way when I was trying to sleep, I’d just bite him. But then – I’ve got them well trained.

Even Misty thinks it’s funny that they put up with it.

Luci's diary: Another skill. And some great training

Luci's Diary. She masters the flap and has great fun at training.

April 2015

Got it! I’ve worked it out! That Misty, who thinks he’s such a smart cat and knows so much more than me, can’t keep that quiet any longer.

The flap in the kitchen door, the one that lets me get in from the garden, well, I’ve found out it works the other way round too! Brilliant. There was no need to look for another flap to get out, I can just use the same one. Fantastic. What a breakthrough. I can get out whenever I like.

And it’s really nice out there. They’ve left some fantastic patches of earth, with interesting little plants in them, where I can just dig and dig. The main boss was telling the little boss all about my fine holes just when she got home today. She told me she’d get a gate. I wonder what one of those is? Could be more fun.

Misty playing with me.
He likes to make out he’s annoyed, but he enjoys it really

Misty’s still as cranky as ever, always pretending to be cross with me, but underneath it all, I know he likes me. He used to try to bite me, but he doesn’t do that any more. And when I run at him, he just chases me back and we play, until he scoots away to hide, but not really hide, because he looks out at me like he’s daring to me run at him again. Which I do. Hey, why wouldn’t I? And he’s obviously enjoying it as much as I do.

Misty “hiding” from me. But he isn’t really...

The latest thing I’ve discovered about the bosses is that they’re quite messy. They drop nice things to eat on the ground. And I’m quick. I get to them fast. I’ve had bits of orange, pear, apple, before they can even think of bending down to pick them up. It amazes the bosses, because they think I should like the boring kibble they put in my bowl instead but, hey, I say if they’re eating it, it’s got to be a lot more interesting than some monotonous little bits that always taste the same.

And another really fun thing! Yesterday the bosses took me to a training class, and I really enjoyed it. Well, I was quite worried at first, because I thought I’d be training the main boss (Misty calls her Domestic Number 1, but I know a boss when I see one, and I know better than to cheek her. Or at least only to cheek her when she’s unlikely to notice. Or at any rate when I can be terribly endearing afterwards).

Fortunately, she sent the little boss out to be trained instead. He didn’t want to go, but she told him like a good boss should. Firmly but calmly.

“No, I think it should be you. It would be really good for you to get a really close relationship with Luci too.”

“But… but… I thought you were going to do this bit…”

She just looked at him. The kind of look that has been rolling over and cranking up the endearing to max level. He grumbled a bit but still put himself on the lead to go out into the main area with me, among all the other dogs. You could tell he was terribly uncomfortable.

To be honest, I wasn’t that comfortable either. “Other dogs”. The words are a lot easier to write than to undergo. I don’t like other dogs. They bark. They’re bigger than me (well, practically all of them). They have teeth and big paws. They smell doggy. I like Loki – he’s a lot of fun and we race around and have a great time – but not many others. And there were at least a dozen in the room.

Loki's fun. Other dogs? I can take them or leave them.
But prefer to leave them

Still, I got used to them in time. By the end of the evening, I was quite relaxed. Even went up and smelled one or two of them. I reckon it was all down to the training bit. It isn’t easy to train a human, and the work distracted my attention.

It worked well though. Within minutes, I’d got him, to use a human expression, eating out of my hand. Which meant I was eating out of his. Eating wonderful little treats. It was really quite funny. I’d sit down, and he’d give me a treat. I’d stand up, and he’d give me another treat. I’d lie down, and he’d give me a treat. I’d look at him instead of at the treat, and he’d give me a treat.

A brilliant system! I love training. And he was really well trained in no time.

And the other thing that made me laugh: the training lady said “your dog doesn’t speak English.” I like that “your”. Always nice to underline the fact that I’m in my pack. But “doesn’t speak English”? Of course, I don’t actually speak it. But hey, I write it.

I wonder if she’ll ever read my diary?