Day 55 in 2020

I haven't given a Gimli update in quite some time. That's partly because, as with all children, the milestones come fewer and further between as he gets older, and it's partly because the school year has been keeping me pretty busy. Not to fear, though, neither Gimli nor his training have been neglected in that time. We still train with Gimli two to three times a day for at least 10 minutes each time.

A lot of that training is practice and honing, but I try to introduce at least one new thing per week or so. Sometimes that "new thing" is just a more detailed aspect of an "older thing"—like starting him a few weeks ago on the prompt "get in" with a box larger than his body, and slowly, each week, shrinking the box size until he's looking all cute and silly standing in a small shoe box. Next we will generalize that command to other objects as well, like a pot or a pan. And sometimes teaching "new things" really means new things, like later this week we will be introducing the fun commands "hug" and "camera" so that we can get better selfies on our hikes. All the important things, you see.

But while these party tricks might not seem all that important, the great value of trick training lies in relationship building. The more training we do, the more we are communicating, and good communication builds trust and happy times together. It might be the equivalent of actually talking to your spouse in the evening instead of sitting side by side on the couch on your laptops with nary a word. Plus it's not infrequent that these tricks come in surprisingly handy, like, for instance, taking better selfies on hikes. Yes, all the important things.