Three Sisters Dog Training Academy By Gene Colling I Illustration by lee hulteng Growing up on a farm, the animals were divided into two groups—merchandise and pets. At one time or another, the merchandise included cattle, sheep, pigs, and chickens. My siblings—a brother and three sisters—and I learned early not to fraternize with the merchandise. Eventually a long truck would come before dawn and haul them away. The pets were another story. They included a couple horses, yearly crop of kittens and a dog. Our dog, Shep, was shared among us, but I felt like he was mostly my dog. Shep was the quintessential farm dog, which meant he never stepped foot in the house. That kept him away from my three sisters who would have petted and cooed at him until he wouldn’t want to follow me on my Sunday meanderings through the fields. I never had another dog like Shep. Lucky for me, we had a cat that lived in the barn. She was a prolific hunter and a fertile feline. Each year she produced a litter of kittens and when their eyes opened she would bring them onto the porch. My sisters loved the kittens, and quickly smothered them with affection turning them into little terrors. They became obsessed with getting inside the house. It was impossible to get out the front door without three or four kittens stuck to our legs like Velcro. Over time, we all left the farm except Fred. My sisters have always had pets in their houses—sometimes cats but always dogs. And my wife, Kyle, already had a dog when we met. He looked like Toto in the Wizard of Oz. She got him from the dog pound, and he came with the inexplicable name of Bird Dog – Birdy for short. Kyle had a knack for training dogs and Birdy was impeccably housetrained and obedient as were all her dogs that followed. As a lifelong teacher, my wife can both nurture or whither with a look or a scold. Plus, she always chooses lap dogs. The two most recent were miniature poodles; I find it impossible to believe they were even remotely related to an ancient wolf. My sisters, on the other hand, excelled only in nurturing. And each seemed to specialize in dogs with a particular dysfunctional behavior. I
54 I DECEMBER 2015/JANUARY 2016 I MAGIC CITY MAGAZINE
told them if there was ever a demand for dysfunctional dogs, they should form their own dog training academy.
House training I recently traveled to Portland, Oregon to visit my youngest sister, Anita. She lives in a nice house with a nice yard and two dogs. Widget, a purebred, regal-looking white West Highland Terrier, has the instinct to hunt varmints and a willful personality. Diesel is a schnauzer-esque rescue dog that seems to always be looking at and listening to something far away. Neither is reliably housetrained, even though they are more than 10 years old. In fact I was welcomed by a special present on the carpet not two feet from the doggie door. When I told Anita, she merely gave a resigned shrug and trudged off to get the Framis 9000 Super Duper Dog Pooper Spot Remover. After removing most of the offensive particles, she set the device directly over the spot. Much like a car wash, the machine cycled through a wash, scrub and rinse. I didn’t ask what the Framis 9000 cost, but it