Retrieving

I guess it shouldn't surprise me that Isaac loves to retrieve.  He is a Labrador retriever, after all.  But he really does love it.

For the first few months I had him, he would retrieve random objects and bring them to me, hoping for a treat.  He knew he got treats for bringing me my medication, and sometimes I asked him to bring me other things, so he would just go around the house picking up random items and depositing them in my lap.  I would be sitting on the couch with my laptop and here would come Isaac, with Mike's wallet or sunglasses, with the television remote control, with some mail he got off Mike's desk, with a cat toy, with one of my shoes.  I guess he hadn't quite figured out why sometimes he would get a treat for retrieving my keys (like when I dropped them and therefore told him to pick them up) and sometimes he didn't.  He would also bring me my meds at random times, hoping to get a treat.

I was talking to a friend about how Isaac got out of bed the other morning to pick up my mouse for me, and it occurred to me then that he hasn't done the thing where he wanders around the house collecting random objects in a long time.  I don't remember when the last time he did it was.  It was kind of cute but sometimes it got annoying.  But he's figured out now when I want him to pick up things and does it at the right time instead of just doing it randomly.

Today I checked the mail and came back inside and sat on the couch and put the mail on the arm of the couch.  Then I got busy doing something with my laptop and wasn't paying attention to the mail and knocked it off the arm of the couch onto the floor.  I didn't need it right that minute and kept doing whatever I was doing, and then I saw Isaac.  He had picked up one of the envelopes from the floor and was offering it to me.  He got two treats and a "good boy!" for that.