Sitting Duck.. er, Dog

Well folks, it's been about two months since we adopted Harry, defying our status as "cat people," and effectively ending our ability to leave the house for more than 5-6 hours at a time. Truthfully, Harry has continued his winning streak as "quite possibly the most cat-like (and therefore most awesome) dog ever." He's quiet (3 barks in 9 weeks), sleeps most of the day, cleans himself, and has the same independent "I'm not going to jump all over you whenever I'm in your presence" quality that we do so value in our companion animals.

One area in which Harry has, thankfully, proven himself to be a model of the canine species is training. After a rocky start, Harry has done really well learning a whole variety of basic commands. Andy and I find one command particularly endearing, however, and that is Harry's newfound ability to "sit" on cue. You see, there is a widely held misconception that greyhounds can't sit because their bodies aren't "designed" for it. In fact, if you watch a greyhound who doesn't like to sit, you'll notice that it really does appear very uncomfortable. So "sit" was never a big goal for Harry's training. Our trainer suggested that we give it a try and boy, did she confirm why we're paying her to guide us through this whole training process. Harry doesn't just sit; Harry LOVES to sit. It has become his default position... if he's learning something new, and he knows that we're asking him for something, but he's not quite sure what it is, he'll give us a "sit" as a sort of "Hmm... I know this has worked quite a few times in the past. Maybe I'll get a treat if I sit." It's pretty cute, though we're no longer allowed to fuss over him when he does it without being asked. Even our trainer, Victoria, finds Harry in a sit to be endearing as she asked to take more pictures to post on her petside.com blog. So, without further ado, I present to you Harry, the Amazing Sitting Greyhound!

The Sitting Greyhound