Happy (belated) birthday!

Happy belated birthday, Dempsey!!!

Mr. D turned the big "2" on February 1, which makes him 24 in human years.

I personally haven't celebrated any of my birthdays since I turned 21. Yeah, I know when I turned 30, I could run for the Senate, or at 35, run for President, but 21 seems like the last real milestone.

It's the same way for Dempsey. He's been a "big dog" since last summer, able to go pretty much everywhere. So his second birthday was pretty low-key. We made him wear a funny hat, and he got a new toy, but that's about it. Twenty-four in dog years: ho hum.

It's been pretty quiet here at the Dempsey house. Like the rest of the country, Minnesota has been in a deep, deep freeze, and we haven't taken Dempsey anywhere fun. We're still working on his training, but none of it is particularly blog-worthy. It's important stuff, but mostly polishing: Being able to stay in a drop for 30 minutes without fidgeting, retrieving a wooden spatula without leaving teeth marks all over it, standing steady when I ask him to "brace."

The new cue he's learning right now is "get the door," where he pulls on a strap to open a door. He's been doing really well at home with the bedroom doors, but on field trips, he was having a hard time pulling open the really heavy doors at malls and stores.

We haven't made a lot of progress, because I haven't been super eager to spend a lot of time outside in the cold, working with Dempsey on heavy doors. But tonight, I had a bright idea. Looking around for the heaviest door we have in the house, I noticed the fridge. Nice and warm in the house, needs some force to open... perfect!

We've only worked on it for about 20 minutes, but already Dempsey has already gotten a lot better.





Next step: Teaching Dempsey to get a beer out once he's opened the fridge.