Dog Power-Word Insurance
Posted 2:30 PM 7/22/2020 by Deb Maurer
Mia absolutely loved her plastic pool up until she waterboarded herself one hot day and now won't set a paw into that pool. We called it her "simpool" as that was the word I used as a tot as I could not pronounce the word swim. We would ask her if she wanted to go out and play in the simpool, and she would run to the door.
She would not last a day in the desert, she is not a fan of hot weather. So a large plastic pool was just the ticket on hot sticky days.
But now, after she gave herself a memorably bad experience, when we ask "do you want to go in the simpool?" She immediately stops what she is doing and walks at high speed from us going directly to her crate where she imposes herself a time-out. She can come and go as she pleases, but she will sit in dog cave until she feels the simpool bogey monster is gone.
As I was lamenting over this complete change of heart to my husband, he said "well, I look at it this way, you now have a power word that she actually gave herself. Nobody pushed her head under the water and bottom line, she was fine, it was 6 inches of water. You have dog power word insurance."
It doesn't get any better than that. Thank your lucky stars you now have a powerful training tool you didn't even work for, it was a gift." He is right, make lemonade from lemons and sometimes life even throws in a free stand.