THE DOG THAT WON A SPELLING BEE

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Just recently, we took in two of our daughter's pet pooches when she moved to Massachusetts. Max and Lilly are brother and sister, and are half Shih Tzu, and half Wire Terrier. (However, they came out strongly favoring the latter of the two breeds).

Our canine adoptees absolutely love the most expensive treat of all time, Purina Beggin'; a bacon flavored delicacy. My wife brought home a large bag of the stuff yesterday. And when I asked her how much it set her back for, she told me it cost the unheard of, super-inflated, horrendous price of $15.00!!! (A hundred years ago a man wouldn't earn that much in a week)!

At any rate, Jean and I were sitting on our hand me down black theatre style sofa today, (which we also recently adopted from our daughter), when I asked Max and Lilly,

"You wanna treat?"

Well, Kristy had assured me that the two little pooches loved these bacon flavored treats, and that they would immediately respond to the word, "Treat."

...They didn't.

As a result, I said to Jean,

"You know, Toby, (our black & white Papillon, which we also inherited from our daughter), would immediately perk up, if I asked if he wanted a b.o.n.e.; (spelling it for my wife's benefit, and not wanting to alert him).

I kid you not. When I spelled that 4 letter word, Toby jumped off the other theatre style sofa, threw his paws up on my arm, and went into his best rendition of "I haven't eaten for a month" act!

As you might well imagine, visions of "America's Got Talent" sprang to mind. Think of that. A spelling dog!!!

However, when I came to my senses, I got off the sofa, walked over to the fridge, grabbed a well-deserved b.o.n.e. out of the box, and placed it between Toby's salivating jaws.

And now, pulling open the pre-sealed bag of Purina Beggin' strips, I selected one for Max, and one for Lilly, enunciating each syllable of "You wanna treat," determined to reinforce the meaning of that third word.

Speaking of the other little fella, Toby's got the spelling down pat. Now, if I could only teach him to say "bone."

by Bill McDonald, PhD