Video

A few nights ago we made pasta and had planned to record the trick where I tie Chuck’s snout shut with a noodle of spaghetti, but before we could get that far we realized that a better video might be one that shows something you can’t really see in a photograph: Chuck doing a half-assed job of obeying a command.

The first trick he ever learned was to sit and then in quick succession he learned most of the other ones, to come and to stay and to lie down. But we waited probably too long to teach him how to roll over because now he routinely gives up in the middle of it and expects us to give him the treat anyway. I guess his thinking is that maybe we missed the part where he didn’t roll all the way over, it could happen, we might have blinked, and he’s much too lazy to not exploit that possibility.

Here I’m tempting him with the pan I used to cook the pasta sauce, and I have to tell him nine times to roll. Four of those times I even give him a visual with my hand to go THAT way. I won’t be surprised if while you’re watching this video your dog rolls over just to get that damn woman to stop yelling ROLL fer chrissake! MAKE HER STOP.

Chuck sort of rolling (flash file)
Chuck sort of rolling (Quicktime movie)