My First Brush with the “Standing Doggy”
Alright, so I heard this term, “standing doggy position,” and honestly, my first thought went straight to my actual dog, Buster. He’s a clumsy golden retriever, bless his heart. So, I thought, “Huh, a new trick? Maybe something for his Instagram?” People are always trying to get their pets to do weird stuff, right?
So, I kicked off this whole “project.” Operation Standing Buster. I figured, how hard could it be? Dogs stand on their hind legs sometimes when they’re excited or begging. But getting him to hold it, and in a specific way? Man, that was a whole other kettle of fish. First, I grabbed a handful of his favorite treats. I tried luring him up with one. He’d pop up for like, half a second, snatch the treat, and then plop right back down on all fours. That wasn’t exactly “standing” in any stable sense.
Then I thought, maybe it’s about support, like he needs a bit of help to get the idea. So, I tried to gently take his front paws, kind of guiding him upwards. Bad idea. Big mistake. He just looked at me with this utterly confused “What on earth are you doing to me, human?” expression. He probably thought I’d finally lost my marbles. My wife, she was watching this whole circus from the kitchen, just shaking her head and trying not to laugh too loud. She mumbled something about me having way too much free time on my hands, which, fair enough.
It kind of reminded me of this one time at my old job, years ago. We got this brand-new software system everyone in management was raving about. “It’s gonna solve all our workflow problems!” they kept saying. “Super intuitive, plug and play!” they promised. Then we, the grunts on the ground, actually tried to implement it for our daily tasks. Oh boy. Nothing worked like it did in the slick sales demo. Everything needed a weird workaround, a special patch downloaded from some obscure forum, or a long call to a customer support line where you’d be on hold for an hour listening to awful music. It was supposed to be this sleek, efficient solution, but in reality, it was just a clunky, complicated mess that made everyone’s life harder for months. Sound familiar to anyone?
Anyway, back to Buster and my grand experiment. I spent a good half hour, maybe even longer, trying all sorts of different approaches I cooked up on the fly.
- Treats held progressively higher – he just got better at jumping.
- Gentle nudges from behind – he just sat down.
- Trying to get him to lean against the sofa for support – he just sort of slid down it like a furry, confused Slinky.
- I even, and I’m a bit embarrassed to admit this, tried showing him pictures on my phone of other dogs standing up (don’t ask, it was a moment of desperation). He just tried to lick the screen.
He just wasn’t having any of it. He’d give me these sad, droopy puppy eyes, like he was saying, “Dad, can we just go for a walk instead? Or, you know, just some regular petting? This is weird.”
Eventually, I just gave up. Buster got a whole pile of apology treats for being such a patient (if unwilling) participant, and I guess I got a lesson in how things with cool or peculiar names aren’t always what you expect, or as easy to achieve as they might sound. I think he was pretty relieved when I finally put the phone away and just threw his favorite squeaky ball for him. Sometimes the simple, straightforward things are best, you know? And maybe some terms are best left to, uh, other contexts I’m not really aware of. I still don’t really know what that position actually refers to in those other contexts, and at this point, I’m almost afraid to Google it. Buster’s definitely not cut out for it, whatever the real version is. He’s much more of a “lying down comfortably on the cool tiles” kind of guy. And honestly, so am I most days. That experiment was exhausting.
