Advice from a Dog

I think that there is some good advice to be heeded from a dog I never met: "Learn the difference between can and can't. See, my uncle had a dog named Jasper at his house in Lexington. Every so often, my dad would go visit his brother and he loved to tease the dog. So my dad would get Jasper all ralled up and then say, "Nope, you can't go," and that dog would go ballistic. He would race up and down their hallways and in every room in the house. Now, my dog does the same thing when we get to playing with her except there's one major difference: my dog is a 10 pound Bichon Frise, and Jasper was a standard poodle. He didn't care what was in his way, he would knock it off and sometimes break it or completely push over furniture. After a minute or so of my uncle screaming, "SCOTT! Make it stop!" my dad would finally concede and tell the dog, "Okay you can go." To a human mind, that would make perfect sense, but this dog didn't get it. So that would start him on his rampage again running through the house. Of course, my uncle still blames my father for driving the dog crazy, and my dad happily takes all of the credit.