May 30, 2018

White Dog said, "Did you see that?" I did. And so did the entire family. We stood frozen and wordless. "Oh my dog, Roman, that was simply awesome!" I managed to sputter.

We were getting ready for dinner and Tizenegy was having a crab-attack at everyone because he felt his needs were not being met quickly enough. He already had served a timeout on the sun porch for pushing and shoving Zso and Bailey. He seemed to calmed enough to be merely impatient and not obnoxious.

Roman was out of the fray leashed and waiting quietly in the pantry. He gets to socially participate in mealtime with the WDA with precautions taken. And he was sitting in "good boy" mode watching the preparation.

Tizenegy decided that somehow Roman was getting special treatment and went over to attempt to bully his brother. Steve stopped what he was doing and moved closer. Bailey (our great facilitator) moved to Tiz's other flank should an intervention be required quickly; she cleverly uses her size as a barrier and to block silliness. I called Tiz out of the room in my best "I have a special treat" voice.

The sound of the jerky jar rattling broke his focus, but not before Tiz lunged forward and gave a resounding WOOF! into Roman's muzzled face.

The air was sucked from the house as we expected Roman to violently react.

But he did not.

It was just like we have been training. When he felt threatened he moved closer to Steve's legs and looked away from Tizenegy. In a nanosecond he thought it through and made the choice that we have been drilling and drilling and drilling.

The kitchen was filled with congratulatory White Dog sounds as the pack and Steve let our boy know he had done VERY well and how proud we were of him.

Tiz was not so ceremoniously put back on the porch until after meals were ready. "If you do not like being around people right now, you can be by yourself," Steve told him."Before dinner is a good time to think about better manners."