"Lucy, leave it!"

A boxer can be taught to do just about anything, and my little boxer baby proved this theory to me this morning.

As some of you may remember, my little pup has an intense desire to chase flying wasps, bumblebees and hornets. As a result of this past-time, Lucy has had several "big bumps."

A few months ago, a friend of mine on the Boxer Mailing List suggested that I teach Lucy to leave the nasty flying objects alone. I admit, I was very skeptical, but figured that I would give it a go. Everytime I caught Lucy about to engage in play with one of these stinging creatures, I would tell her to "Leave it, Lucy." After a couple of times of telling her to "leave it", she left them alone completely and hasn't had a big bump since sometime in July.

This morning, Rob & I were enjoying the beautiful fall morning in the hot tub, when I noticed Lucy perched over something, barking her little head off. I got out of the hot tub and went to investigate. Lucy was barking at a wasp that had the nerve to land on her deck. I promptly told her to "leave it, Lucy" and watched as Lucy backed off another foot and waited for her mom to squish it, which I promptly did before telling Lucy "Good Girl!!".

I'm so proud of my little boxer baby! And you can bet that this human made a very big deal out of Lucy's "Leave It!" this morning!

As a side note, on Friday somehow I accidentally deleted my "picture" file on my computer. I was able to save some of my images, but I didn't get them all back! I'm relieved to have rescued some of them, but lost several years of my life, and some of the best Lucy pictures that I had. I'm still sick over it!