It's a common belief that labs are dumb happy-go-lucky licky dogs, whereas herding dogs like the border collie are intelligent thinking dogs. Considering that Droopy most likely had some of each and was quite fond of licking any faces found in close proximity to his mouth, we weren't sure whether we had a smart dog or just a plain ol' goofy dog.

Chapter 1: The stairs

For Droopy's first Christmas in 1998, we bought him a reindeer toy (there were other toys in the bag but those only lasted minutes). Having been taught not to go downstairs at that time (because that was Shadow's safe place while we were introducing them), he was quite unhappy when Amy stayed down there for some time in the computer room.

*thump* *thump* *thump* *thump* Presently a strange noise was heard on the staircase. Looking out the computer room door, Amy saw the reindeer at the bottom of the stairs. *toss* Up went the reindeer back to Droopy.

*thump* *thump* *thump* *thump* There it was again that funny noise! Up went the reindeer back again. After a while with no thumping, there was the sound of Droopy whimpering at the top of the stairs. Sure enough, the reindeer had gotten stuck halfway. So Droopy enjoyed great success in teaching his parents his new stairway game. After the reindeer died, it didn't take him long to improvise a better game with his tennis ball. As a self-taught dog, he didn't think to push the ball with his nose, so he gets it downstairs by licking it to death. Slimy yet satisfying!

Chapter 2 - The gate

When Droopy got his pet door, he didn't like it much and would only use it when directly ordered to go through it. Nevertheless, he quite handily would suddenly learn how to use it well whenever the situation suited him, such as if there were those vicious crows that the backyard needed to be defended from. Otherwise he left it alone though so we kept it open for emergencies and didn't think much of it.

"Hey, Aim, you gotta be more careful, Droopy was outside the gate when I got home," said Amy's brother Tom. How odd, we are usually so careful! Duly noted. Then a few weeks later he was mysteriously outside the fence in the front yard again. Clearly there was something more at work here than just carelessness.

We knew the loose front gate could be pushed in from the outside and would swing open, but if anyone pushed from the inside it would stay closed. We thought maybe Droopy was squeezing his narrow frame through the gap between the fence and the gate. To test it, we brought Droopy outside, stood outside the gate, and called him. Here is what happened:

Who says a dog can't teach his owners new tricks?

Back to Droopy's page