Worth the Price of Admission

I've always loved training dogs, that love combined with my business-minded nature had me making money at an early age charging my family admission to see our dogs "perform".  I'm sure it was money well spent, after all, who wouldn't pay to see a Lhasa Apso jump through a hula hoop?!  

My "show dogs" Muffy and Scruffy.  This is also when Heather and I had some pretty awful haircuts!

Despite her many circus style talents, Muffy was not the most well-behaved dog and she would constantly run away.  This little dog could get out of everything!  My Dad finally came up with the brilliant plan of attaching an empty milk carton at the end of a rope that was attached to her collar.  She could move freely around the yard, but would get stuck when she'd pull a Houdini escaping through the fence.

One of my favorite dogs ever was named Bucky!  To me he was the perfect dog, he was a giant mutt (in my eyes he seemed like a giant!) with an even bigger personality.  He was a rescue and with his big personality came even bigger behavioral problems.  I couldn't have been more than 6 years old and I would spend hours in the yard playing with Bucky and teaching him what my young brain thought were very important tricks for a dog to know. Unfortunately, what I did not teach Bucky was to stay in his own yard :(  I came home from school one day and my giant friend was not there to greet me.  

Bucky, me and Heather...pre-haircuts.

Given this history, it's not terribly surprising that my biggest worry with Denali was training her to stay on the property. After all, we have 10 acres bordered by even more open land, that's a lot of area for a little pup to explore and get lost!

Denali in the feed room - such a good barn dog!

Denali enjoys going to the barn with me but she often opts to head back to the yard before I'm done with chores.  The first couple times she wandered off it made me a bit nervous, but I knew there was only one way to find out if I needed to start shopping for giant milk cartons.  

I had nothing to worry about.  Denali is incredible, she waits patiently like a little Berner statue, always sitting somewhere where she can see me.

As soon as she sees me wrapping up chores and the barn door closing she is full speed ahead to greet me and walk me back to the house.

And when I say walk me back, she does just that!  When she first started doing it I thought she just wanted to bite my gloves, but I quickly learned that it wasn't about the gloves and if I didn't pull away she would pull me all the way back to the house.  

Denali does a lot cute things, but this is hard to beat!

While my dog training skills have definitely improved over the years, I have to give most of the credit to this incredible breed. Denali is so smart!  If I would have had her as a kid I would have been able to charge a much higher admission price!

Love her little statue pose.