Out

How I became a dog person .... a story for another day. Today our dog Diego made my day by speaking the word OUT ... I had been trying to train him very infrequently to "sing," meaning to kind of howl a little. I recently figured out that I wanted him to obey this command when he wanted me to let him out. When Diego comes to me for something it is usually to either play, get a treat, or to go outside, so I would ask him if he wanted to go outside and in the past if he wanted to go outside he would either point his face toward the door or start walking to the door. I refused to let him out until he made some other noise besides a bark or growl. Then the other day I had an epiphany and put on a YouTube video clip of a dog howling to a siren. He just stared at the television and the speakers until the video was over and then he started howling. I praised him abundantly and let him outside. He walked away from the house and looked back at me in the doorway as if I had lost my mind. Two days later and he came to me and I asked him if he wanted to go outside, as usual he tried to get away with little intermittent soft barks ( I don't know if all dogs or other dogs are like this but Diego when told to speak i.e. bark, tries to get away with just making the motion of barking without anything audible coming out and I have to keep insisting that he BARK to get an actual bark out of him ... same thing with roll over becoming half a roll ... Anyyyywayyyyyy, this morning he gave a half-ass attempt at a howl and I let him out, thennnnn he wanted to come right back in after a few minutes and he must have had an epiphany because he looked at me right away and I said what??? and he said out not once but twice .... OWww ... OWww!!!! I laughed and loved him up and let him ooowwww(t).