This is my wife some years back with one of our Dobbies, Sin-Loi. He was a special case and a very special story. He was barely 3 months old when we got him. He was given to us as a gift and it was supposed to be trained by my wife, her first one. A couple of days later, he got sick, very sick. We found out that his mom and the rest of the litter were also sick and it was parvo which is supposed to be  fatal. The stubborn wife of mine refused to give up on her trainee; she spoon fed him, massaged him, talked to him and kept him in my room (under the disgusted looks of out 2 cats) and her patience and dedication paid off.

As for training, the dog absorbed the instructions. I swear she only had to do maybe two repetitions and it was imprinted in the animal. Same as the ones over my folks’ place, he was not allowed in the house but the missus got an old couch where he could spend his time while not patrolling or locked in his house. He was smaller and thinner than the average Dobbie and that white stripe automatically disqualified him from the purity of the  breeding circles, but he was the smartest and meanest dog we ever had.

I am not screwing around saying he was smart. This is 100% true story and hold my beer.  We went for a long weekend vacation and my father and mother were to come around the house to feed him and make sure he was OK. When we got back, my parents complained that the dog just royally ignored them and they had a hard time with him. It was then that it dawned on us that we did not think well the whole training thing: The dog was trained in the language we used at home, English. My parents spoke the language of the land, Spanish. The dog was not ignoring them, he did not understand them!

For some reason that I am still unaware of, the Berlitz Spanish Class for Canines fell on me to teach. The dog once again made devoured the material like it was fresh ground beef and soon after we had a fully bilingual Doberman. Mom and Dad appreciated the hell out of it, specially the “Dame un Besito” (Give me a kiss) which my mom found adorable and rewarded with the good treats.

He is dead now. Lasted only 12 year rather than the usual 14-15 that our dogs get as minimum, but I reckon the parvo had left enough scars inside. Everybody in our neighborhood was scared shitless of him except our youngest siamese cat which was totally infatuated with the Dobbie and confused the shit out of him.

PS: Wife reminded me that Sin-Loi was never meant to or went after cats. That kinda came in handy when your Alpha was also the Cat Lady of the house.
PS 2: Sin-Loi’s mom and brothers an sisters did not survive the parvo. He was the only one who made it.