When You Hear the Whistle...

A few days ago Peggy's husband made me this super cool bracelet. It's braided para-cord (the stuff they use to tie parachutes to the backpack) which is blaze-orange with reflective thingies in it, and the buckle is a whistle. I decided to try to train Pepper to come when I blow the whistle, so I can get her to come back when she's too far away to hear my voice.

I thought I had a brilliant plan to train her. I grabbed a handful of treats and went out in the yard with her expecting her to run around exploring like she usually does. No such luck. She knew I had treats and therefore decided to not move more than two inches from me, in the hopes that she would get one. I tried to make the most of it by blowing the whistle softly to make sure it didn't scare her. Finally I was about to give up. I shoved the treats in my pocket and went to pick some strawberries. Apparently the backyard is much more interesting than the front because Pepper immediately wandered off. I periodically blew the whistle, followed with my regular "come" command, treating her when she listened. After I ran out of treats we called it a day.

I didn't really get another chance to work with her on whistle training for the rest of the week, and didn't really think about it much, until early this morning. One of our smoke detectors decided it's battery was low... at like 3am. It's incessant chirping wormed it's way into my sleepy brain and finally irritated me enough to force myself awake. When I went to sit up I found Pepper sitting patiently by my bed. Now this wouldn't have been surprising except that Pepper knows she is not allowed in the bedroom. I thought, this is weird, and shooed her out. She trotted out into the living room until the smoke detector chirruped again, and she came right back to me and sat expectantly. Due to the extreme hour, it took a few more rounds of this before I realized that the smoke detector's chirps sounded very like my whistle! Poor Pepper thought I kept calling her to me and shooing her away! Apparently Pepper is smart enough that just 5 minutes of training can teach her a completely new skill. Once we got the stupid smoke detector to shut up I had to go soothe my poor pup and try to explain that it wasn't me calling her and it was time to go back to bed. I hope today I'll get a chance to test her new skill in the "wild!"