How to Train your Human Pet

Chippy, Spitfire, and Merry are off on some wildlife tracking adventure. Chippy asked me, Vinnie the P., to fill in for him on the blog. Can you name one characteristic of a well educated and cultured chipmunk? If you listed having a well behaved human pet, give yourself an A+. I have been teaching a master class on “How to Train your Human Pet.” This class takes everything to the next level. In my introductory class “Human Pets 101” my students learn the basics. I teach them various poses, facial expressions and body language that appeal to human’s psychological weaknesses. For example there is the “cute animal” pose and the “poor starving chipmunk” act. Although these basic poses are effective at getting your pet to leave some food for you, they do not demonstrate mastery of control over your human pet.

My master class teaches those advanced skills. Think of it as obedience school for your human pet. (Some chipmunks may not be aware of this but many humans send their young puppy dogs to obedience classes. This makes humans think they are masters of all creatures. It is just a human delusion, we chipmunks are the true masters.) At the end of this class, my students should have a human pet that acts like their personal butler.

At the Woodpile, we share one human pet. This has caused a certain amount of problems. I had to spent a lot of time training this pet to handle multiple tasks and serve dinner at each resident's preferred location. We picked up this pet at the local humane rescue shelter. It has had a few obedience problems. Nothing like a good challenge.

“Aren’t you forgetting something? It is dinnertime. Time to serve the seeds.”

Sparky directs our Woodpile human pet to put his dinner on top of the hay bale. He likes dinner with a view.

Sparky is very pleased with our human pet’s training progress.

Sophia prefers the “Hollow Stump Café”

Competition for a seat at the Hay Bale and Hollow Stump Café can be rather fierce at times. It is not unusual for a customer to lose his seat to another ‘munk. If you want to eat dinner in peace, I recommend having it served on your pet’s shoe. The other ‘munks will think you can have your pet squash them at a moments notice.

I am afraid not all chipmunks have good manners. This fellow is eating seeds from the pet’s hand, how uncivilized. It gives folks the impression we ‘munks are the pets rather than the humans. (For the record this is not one of my students.)

As a faculty member I get to eat at the head table (Mom’s boot). Mom is considered a friend and member of the Woodpile not a pet.

As I mentioned we are still having some obedience issues with the Woodpile pet. For example, the dip bowl water tasted like bath water. It had been sitting out in the hot sun all day. I spoke sternly with the pet, “You expect me to drink bath water. Now go fetch me some ice cold spring water. Don’t let this happen again.” Sometimes you have to take a firm paw with your pet.