Puppy on the Table
by Tina Blue
January 4, 2004
My sister Carol has a 5-year-old beagle named Jake.
As a puppy, Jake was always using the chairs at the dining table to climb up on the table. Carol would walk into the room, and there the puppy would be, watching the world from his privileged position on the table.
Now, you have to admit that's pretty cute--a puppy that likes to perch up on the table so he can watch better.
But at the same time, you have to admit you don't want a dog getting up on the table where you eat all your meals.
So Carol trained the dog to stay away from the table. She moved the chairs away from the table so that he couldn't use them as a stepstool to get up there. And if someone inadvertently left a chair too close, so that Jake did get up there, Carol would chastise him firmly and make him get down.
Eventually, it seemed that Jake had learned that dogs don't belong on dining tables. By the time he was a year old, Carol and her family were leaving the chairs around the table, just as any family would do that doesn't have a table-climbing dog.
But just last year, Carol walked into the dining area of her house, only to find 4-year-old Jake, a full-grown beagle, mind you, curled up asleep on a newspaper that her husband Mark had left on the table.
She ran for her camera and took a picture before she woke the dog up to make him get down.
It's still darned cute when the dog gets up on the table like that--but it's still something you do not want to encourage.
