Dad’s been working really hard lately.  Perhaps a bit too hard.  He forgot the commands we taught him!  The other day, Dad spent the entire morning using his dictation software to write a report for work.  Needing a bit of a break to clear his mind, he happily leashed us up to take a quick walk.  That’s when I noticed the problem.

As usual Asa was happily stuffing as many pinecones as he could into his mouth.  I like to call him the puppy vacuum!  Anyways, rather than use the “Drop It” command, Dad blurted out “Delete!”  Now Asa isn’t as computer savvy as me, so not recognizing this word he decided to ignore Dad and just kept picking up pinecones.  Dad then said it again even louder, “DELETE!”  This time at least the tone of his voice got Asa’s attention.  But he was still confused on how this new word applied to him.

I laughed to myself, as the two of them stared at each other in bewilderment.  Dad, annoyed that Asa still had a mouth full of pinecones, and Asa wondering what delete meant.  We had completely stopped walking by then, and Asa made the connection that it may have something to do with his mouthful of soggy pinecones.  One by one he slowly dropped them.  To which Dad responded, “Good Drop It!”  That’s when Dad realized his silly mistake, and we all smiled as we continued our walk.  Well everyone smiled except Asa.  He really wanted those pinecones.