Curses! Foiled Again

So, in a discussion with our puppy kindergarten teacher about my little Tom Cruise’s couch-jumping problem, she offered a creative solution.

I had tried everything I could think of by this point. He’d outsmarted me on regular leash, and even on the retractable leash I keep only for in-house training purposes (good for mysterious “self-corrections” from across the room when a dog is too sniffy or wants to jump, and thinks it has freedom to do so). Thus far the casual “I think I’ll go lounge on the couch” kind of jumping had been taken care of, but I’d still been struggling to arrest the “I’m so crazed and playful right now that my ten-legged momentum dictates that I simply must use the couch for a canine parkour party” kind of jumping. I had no ideas left. But Yvette had a good one.

Aluminum foil.

You read right! I went home, put the puppy to bed in the other room so he couldn’t see what I was doing, pulled my trusty extra-wide roll of aluminum foil off the baking shelf, then set to work covering the seats of my couches end to end with nice long strips. Heh heh hehhhhhh….

The next morning was hilarious. I wish I’d had the presence of mind to get it on video.

Truman and Jethro had their morning playtime, and started chasing each other around the living room.

Shuffle shuffle shuffle bark shuffle shuffle zoom zoom BOING (*crinkle*) “WHAT THE %*^& WAS THAT?!?!?”

He was off the couch as quickly as he’d gotten on; all it took was four little paws on that unpleasant surface — the feel of it, the weird noise — and a couple of hot-coals-dance foot prances, and he was back on the floor, with ears up and a furrowed brow, looking at the foil as if it were going to come to life and kill us all. I could hardly contain myself. I think my belly-laughs at his expense offended him, because he started running around again and tried it on the other couch.

Same thing. It was awesome.

The couches were safe for the rest of the day.