Some dogs are born to perform.
They shake hands, speak only when spoken to, and fetch the old man's slippers. Say the word and some family dogs plop down and pretend to be dead. Speak again and they leap up, tails wagging, tongues slurping, ready for the next trick.Not every dog has his day. Some never learn backyard tricks. But, sooner or later, most family dogs that are loved learn something. The smartest dog in northwest Ohio? Who knows. But if you ask around a certain Perrysburg neighborhood, folks point to the Ellison house and say "Go interview Lexie."
Lexie is Alexis Ellison. She is 7 years old and a Wonder Dog if there is one. "Tricks? She does 'em all. She speaks, rolls over, sits up, balances a biscuit on her nose, and stays in one place," says George Ellison. "She'll play dead, rolls on her back and stays motionless, and sticks her feet up in the air."
Being a golden retriever, she naturally retrieves balls and sticks. Lexie's piece de resistance is the jungle crawl. "Our son, Joshua, taught her. Say the word and Lexie crawls on her belly. Like a worm."
How does Lexie perform under pressure? A neighbor entered her in a dog-trick contest and she won a ribbon, says Ellison. "She jumped through a hoop and she wowed 'em with her jungle crawl." Alexis is so intelligent that "we teach her just one time and it's there. She understands what we're saying. She knows where her treats are. She was nosing around the kitchen. My wife, Sharon, said `What are you looking for, Lexie?' The dog pushed open a cupboard door with her paw. "She runs our house. She's got us trained pretty well."
And then there is Oreo, the singing dog. Oreo sings along with Deb Pezzin of Toledo, for public and private audiences. But not just any song. Oreo sings "Eh' Campari" and he sings it in Italian.
It began when her father, John Pezzin, was hospitalized. To surprise him, Deb taught Oreo to sing the Italian song her grandfather had taught her. "But Dad came home with stitches so I had to wait a few months. I was afraid when he heard Oreo sing the Italian song, he'd laugh so hard he'd rip out his stitches."
Oreo is a Sitzu, a small Chinese dog. How, one asks, do we know he isn't singing in Chinese? "Because he's singing an Italin song with me, and I'm Italian and I'm singing Italian, that's how we know!" says Ms. Pezzin. And who could argue?
Oreo does suffer from stage fright, says Ms. Pezzin. "He backed out of one performance with the Carlos Family Singers at an Italian dinner at Christ the King Church. But later, he composed himself and sang."
Got a runny nose? See a doctor. Or you could get a dog that does the trick Sharon Lindau taught Abby, her 7-year-old miniature Schnauzer: When the dog hears a sneeze, he runs, picks up a Kleenex, and brings it back to the sneezer.
Lindau is an instructor at Pups 'N' People, a dog training school in Maumee, Ohio. So is Laurie Jones, whose golden retriever, Moz, is employed there to pick up all the dog bowls and bring them to be filled with dog food.
Out in Delta, Ohio, neighbors think twice about approaching the home of Brian and Sandi Przepiora. Sheena, 90 pounds of ferocious-looking Rottweiler, might be glaring at them. But looks deceive.
Sheena the Rottweiler does tricks, not attacks. "She's gentle," says Sandi Przepiora. "That's how we trained her, by being gentle with her."
Sheena, she says, will shake your hand with her paw, roll over on command, and sing on cue if she's in the mood. The 6-year-old dog taps a human leg with a paw when she wants to be petted, says Sandi. "If you stop petting too soon, she knocks on your knee again.
Pepsi, a black Labrador, is an actor. His owner, Linda Copti, tells children's groups about bear safety and what to do if they chance upon a bear in the woods. Pepsi acts out the parts on signal: sitting, lying down, playing dead, and begging for mercy. Ms. Copti owns the Pups 'N' People school. She does not think pet owners spend as much time teaching tricks to family dogs as in the past.
"People are busier. Some get a dog and don't teach it anything. Most dogs nowadays are unemployed slobs. By teaching tricks, owners get control and dogs become better pets. Obedience is a trick, too. When people don't teach dogs anything, many wind up given to shelters, with behavior problems."
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.)