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It's not unusual to get into a conversation that leads to pet stories. And it's now unusual to get into a contest to see whose pet is smartest.
I win at that game. Our family pet was a rat terrier named Paddy. She has been gone now for about 20 years, but her legend lives on in our family because of the things she did. Training her to do the stunts was never part of the equation, she just picked up ideas on her own. Like the time she decided to get into my parents slippers. It turned out to be a "dog trick"! My mom's collection of slippers included several identical styles but different colors. We could ask Paddy to get the blue slippers,or maybe the white slippers, and she would do it, one at a time without mixing them up. My dad had only one pair of slippers so Paddy didn't have to worry about colors, but we did try to cross her up by calling for them out of order and she would get it right every time. You've heard about "begging"? Paddy took it to another level. During dinner parties at our house, she would beg for food by picking up her bowl and walking around the room. Guests were instructed to share a morsel with her by placing it in her bowl as she held it. Paddy would put the bowl down, eat the contents and then pick it up and go on to the next guest in the room and repeat it. Our back yard was large enough to play two on two tag football. One afternoon I had a couple of friends over to the house, two on two doesn't work with three. I had an idea, let's use the dog! Paddy and I took on the two friends and immediately she took to the sport. We had to use a deflated football on our side for offense. On defense Paddy was excellent on making "tackles".

She was good enough that I decided to practice with her on a regular basis and pretty soon she was playing Quarterback literally barking out signals and running for a touchdown! My friends were amazed. By the way, Paddy was a little dog and it's really hard to play touch football when you have to bend almost to the ground
and try to tag her while she's running through your legs. Needless to say she was a prolific scorer. I gave her a treat for every touchdown.
One night my parents made the mistake of letting Paddy out to go potty, but forgot she was still out there and went to bed. Paddy was no where to be found the next morning. By the time police found her about a mile away from our house, our neighborhood was in high alert. The cops brought her back to the house and news spread throughout the neighborhood that Paddy was back and safe. Neighbors came out from all sides to welcome her home. The officer said that this dog was getting more attention than some of the lost children he's brought home.
Finally, the last story about Paddy involves her ability to fetch items. One night, during a family gathering, I decided to show off Paddy's intelligence with an ultimate test. I had never asked her to retrieve my wallet before, but I told her to go get it in my room. She went into the room but came back empty. I picked her up and told her that the wallet was on the nightstand between the beds. She brought it back! Paddy died at the age of 16.

Learn more about this author, Kevin Shepardson.
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