Have you ever had a trigger sound? A piece of music or sound that gives you an instant positive reaction or brings you back to a happy time in your childhood? I’ve only got one, it’s when my boss tells me to go home from work early and have a long weekend. Of course this has never actually occurred in real life but I’m certain it would give me a positive reaction.

Storm’s trigger sound is the doorbell. The best time of his day is when someone rings it, he can go from fast sleep to standing upright and running through the house in a mad rush to meet the new person, who is obviously there for the sole purpose of meeting him. He’d run so fast it’s impossible to get traction on the tiles so his legs are running a lot faster than the rest of his body as he slipps across the floor and head first into the door.

Of course he ignores his embarrassing crash because we all know dogs never make mistakes. He stands up, dusts himself off like the cool dude he is and does that Golden Retriever smile to the person walking through the door. In a worse case scenario for Storm the person visiting will ignore him. Storm doesn’t understand this , why would anybody ignore such a magnificent creature such as him? He’s famous, he has his own blog and therefore everybody in the world knows who he is. The fact that someone is ignoring him is unjustifiable behaviour and Storm now needs to change their attitude.

He needs to up his game and try the charm offensive. Maybe they need one of his toys? Yes, that’s it, who wouldn’t be impressed with a stuffed toy that was dripping in stale dog spit and missing body parts? If Storm brings this over and offers it then they can play together and will therefore by lifetime friends. It works with other dogs therefore it will work with humans. His attempts at flattery and cajolement often work after a few minutes he’d be sitting next to the person on the floor while they were chatting with us as they patted him.

I read recently that dogs like get petted, we all know that because our dogs are always walking up to us with that look on their face that they demand attention now. In fact it’s a little more interesting than that. A recent study by some guy at a University somewhere that I couldn’t be bothered sourcing showed that dog’s heart rate and blood pressure actually lowered by petting. An obvious but confusing conclusion they discovered in the study is that dogs showed little interest in spoken word. I say it’s an obvious conclusion for two reasons. Firstly I doubt Storm speaks fluent English and is uninterested when he talk to him about our problems. The second reason is when the doorbell rings in our house there are no words on Earth I couldn’t possibility say that would cause Storm to stop his single goal of reaching the front door to meet his new “Super best fried in the world”

He knows he’s going to have an adventure with his new fried and normally he does. Most people like him and it causes him to have a rather high opinion of himself. He wouldn’t actually say it out loud up but he thinks he’s better than other dogs and most humans. For the record I think I agree with him on the humans.

Of course sooner or later our guest has to leave. Storm tries convincing them to stay by offering a tennis ball or by showing his excellent hunting skills by barking incoherently at the cat for a few minutes but as they walk out the door Storm just stares up at the door and imagines the next time the doorbell rings.

He’ll be ready and next time he will make sure the stuffed toys have lots of slobber.