Shopkeeper's Bell

I'm liking this blogging thing. I really don't have anything to say, but it's still fun to say it.

We got a new bell for the back door. More accurately, we got a new bell for the dog. We want her to ring the bell instead of paw at the door when she wants to go out. Our dog Tally is a beautiful labrador with a coat as white as a polar bear's. She has more champions in her pedigree than Wheaties has for their ads, and she is a sweet, sweet, sweet. With a preface like that one can pretty easily infer that she doesn't have so much going in the brains department. It's not that she's downright dumb, but she's nothing like Murphy or Lucky, her predecessors. So, we're trying to teach Princess Tallia to ring the bell.

Now, this really isn't complicated and we've done it before. For three years Tally successfully rang the last bell every time she wanted to go out, but we took that bell down last summer before remodeling. And because this was a complete remodeling, we needed to remodel the bell, as well. The new bell is a "shopkeeper's bell", designed to hang from an arm over a door and ring when the door opens. It replaces the old bell that hung on a wide, flowery, frayed ribbon tied around the door knob. Over time, that bell etched a groove in the door from Tally's innumerable nosings, so we really weren't going overboard in remodeling the bell. We have the arm mounted in the wall next to the door, at dog nose height. And we were really encouraged the first time Tally wanted to go out and we showed her the bell (with a treat cupped in the hand, naturally). She nosed the bell. Imperceptially. I don't think the bell even moved. Maybe she just nosed AT the bell. Anyway, it seems the bell was held rather rigidly in place and needed a pretty good smack to ring. So, we did a little remodeling to the remodeled bell so that it can ring a little more freely, but it still isn't quite working. Tally noses at the bell, it swings ever so slightly and completely soundlessly, and I let her out since, after all, she's got the general jist.

So now we've got to try to get her to nose harder, but painlessly! Or find a way to get the bell to ring even easier. Or maybe just change the bell. You know, that old bell might be just the thing...