Thoughts on training your human

As most of you know, training your human is a never-ending task. They'll be going along perfectly fine, then they'll get some odd notion in their head and you have to work on training it out of them. It's hard work, but a well-trained human is essential to your long-term happiness and well-being. A well-trained human, for example, will dispense treats liberally, always serve meals on time, and know exactly where to plant that ear scritching.

I've been training my human for six years, and she's pretty well-behaved if I do say so myself. One thing I learned in the training process that is very hard but essential to your human's success -- you have to let them do things on their own. Yes, I know, it's usually so much easier if you do it yourself. But then they don't learn. Let's take the bed, for example.

When I first started training my human, I told her that a neatly made bed was a necessity every single morning. She grumbled a lot, but she agreed. So every morning, we'd make the bed together. I was flying all over that bed, smoothing out the sheets and making sure they got aired out completely before she put the quilt back on. It was exhausting, folks! And you know what? She still needed my help every day! That's not training.

So finally I took the hard step. I told her, "Momma, you're a big girl now. It's time for you to start making the bed by your own self." She looked at me with those wide, pathetic eyes and said, "But Casey, how will I possibly do it right by myself?" I reassured her that I'd be right there with her, but she had to learn to do it herself. And you know what? She did!

Now every morning, Momma makes the bed all by herself while I sit on the other side and watch her carefully. And if she does a good job, I jump right up in the middle of it and let her scritch me for a while as a reward. (Rewards are very impawtant when training humans.) She gets a wonderful sense of satisfaction out of it, and I get scritches! That's what we call a win-win scenario, folks.

So how about you? Do you have any advice for training your humans?