He's not too picky. Any hand will do, sorta. Also, he's a bit of a traitor. I've known him longer than he's known the missus but he's over under her feet as I type this.
This one trained easily. The one I had before was also really easy to train.
I have a mean (but necessary) trick that he does. I can put a chunk of meat on the floor and tell him no. I only need to tell him once. After that, you can try to get him to eat that meat. In fact, I have a running bet with people. I'll bet you any amount of money (but you can not touch the dog to harm him) that you can't make my dog eat something I told him not to eat.
This can be good fun when you've come home late from the bar with a few drunken friends.
He is not fond of doing this trick - but he does it and does it without fail.
I can leave the house and he won't eat the meat. I'm sure he'd eat it if he was starting to get too hungry and didn't have his dog food available. I've never tested it for too long 'cause that's just too mean.
But, he has to know what he can't eat, especially in the woods where there are plants or animals that might be unhealthy if he ate them. At the end of the day, he's a lovable working dog and I need to keep him safe.
Anyhow, I didn't comment previously so that I wouldn't derail the thread. It's a perfectly fine thread with a fairly straight topic. I was just sharing in OP's joy a bit. Having a really good dog is a great thing. (Lots of people think they have great dogs but they don't. In fact, some of them shouldn't be allowed to own dogs.)
I phrased it that way just for the non-U.S. crowd - It sounds so much more mischievous than "stole" or "swiped" and "purloined" is just too many letters. Makes my day that it worked well.
