Pork tenderloin, pineapple and berries

Rosemary, salt, pepper.

Pretending it has four sides, and I am branding a cow. 

Except it's pork, not beef. 

On the fourth side the stovetop is turned off and the pan in placed into the oven pre-heated to 400℉ and the oven turned off. So now the oven has begun cooling down as the pork cooks. For ten minutes. So don't open the door and muck about wasting the stored heat. 

See, that's how we pros do things. And we do it with outdoor grills too. Even a Weber. We bring our pre-used coals up to heat, perhaps with a few new ones,  put on the steaks, then shut the whole thing down as it cook thus saving the charcoal briquettes or whatever we're using. We use the same fuel over and over supplementing as we go. 

Hummingbird-view.

Dog-sniffing-the-table-view.

Buster! Hang on a second and I'll give you some. 

My Belgian sheepdogs were not allowed in the kitchen. I had three of that type of dog. Belgian Groenendael. One at a time, not all at once. 

The rule was hard and fast. All three entrances into the kitchen are carpeted while the kitchen floor was ceramic tile. Their paws were not allowed to touch the tile. 

But each one in their time tried the same thing. 

They each kept testing the rule to see if it still applied. 

They would sit on the carpet and watch me then put one paw on the tile.

"Ak!" 

Then they'd pull their paw back to the carpet and look at me like, "Just testing." 

I'd show them things that I'm preparing. I'd roll things to them like a marble and they'd watch it come to them then snap it up when it reached the carpet. They were each terrible at catching things in mid-air. 

Except for Cheese-It crackers. Those were the only things they could catch. I don't know if that was because they are orange or because they are aerodynamically slower. 

They were each incredibly responsive with obedience training. A bit scary, actually. Like Nazi dogs except more extreme and even more precise. There is simply nothing else like it. But there are some things that they just don't care to do. Like they're brain-dead to retrieving and catching a Frisbee. Games they just flat don't like to play. Until you have another dog who loves it and they get jealous, then suddenly they become instantly brilliant at that too. Remove the jealousy-inducing dog and bang right back to brain-dead again. That happened repeatedly. With each dog. It's not a fluke. 

So they're not perfect at everything. Just most things. 

And incredibly easy to train. 

In fact, most of the training involves them training you. About how to get along best. 

I often asked, Jeez, who's zooming whom here? 

They taught me I must talk to them. About everything. Constantly.

And do that each time. No matter what. 

Because they're so anxious they freak out when you don't. 

Therefore, I was trained: talk to the dog. 

Explain to them personally, that I'm going out but I'll be back in five minutes (lie) and they must be a good soldier and guard the whole house. Stay out of trouble and don't get near any strangers. And when I return we'll have a joyous reunion. 

And I could see them perk right up to attention and become a good little soldier. They accepted the responsibility of being a good dog. 

But if I didn't do that, they'd be a nervous wreck wondering why I abandoned them, worried they're all alone, thinking they don't matter to me anymore, thinking there will be no one to care for them, worried I joined another dog pack. They'd get into the trash, pull out a milk carton and gnaw it a billion little bits down to the molecules. They can't help themselves. They're mental. 

And it's all my fault for not talking to them. 

That's how they trained me. 

Yesterday I told my brother how each one figured out how to obey and disobey at the same time.

They always wanted to come with me in the car no matter what. 

If the car door was opened and I was preparing then they would jump in and sit patiently for me to get in and drive away together. 

Charming, actually.

But I had to disappoint them. 

I'd say, "Quit fooling around. Get out of the car." 

They'd each give the exact same expression, and this is three dogs spread over decades, an expression of not wanting to obey but with conflict of having to obey. They displayed distress. Then *ding* they realized they could get out of the car like they're told, joyfully jump out, spin around and in a single movement jump right back in and sit in the exact same spot and look at me like they figured out the conundrum satisfactorily. "I can obey him and still get what I want." To see each dog do that exact same thing was remarkable. None of the three failed to obey and disobey simultaneously. Their minds worked identically. 

With these Belgian sheepdogs, you know exactly what you will get. Very bright dogs that need tons of direct personal attention constantly. 

Oh! 

I told my brother one day one of the dogs was mental and having a bad day. To erase it and get back on track I ran her through her beginner obedience in which she always does very well and that way I can praise her for being great.

Except that day she wasn't great. 

She was just good. 

Better than most other dogs, but well below her usual performance.

My hands at my sides met the tip of her upright ear. When she was great I would rub the tip of her ear. Anything more than that and she'd get excited. Anything less than that and she'd just die of neglect. 

That's how delicate the balance between doing great and tragedy. A mere rub of the tip of her ear. 

She required my physical contact. 

That's how she trained me. 

This day I neglected to rub the tip of her ear because she was doing poorly. A bit sloppy all around. Just a bit. 

And she freaked out. 

She spun around on her leash, utterly confused about why things were going so bad. Poor dog was having a nervous breakdown and she was totally f'k'n'g up the whole training session. Impatient with her I snapped loudly "RELAX!" 

Then instantly regretted yelling at my dog. I felt stupid. A failure at training. I lost it. I lost control. This backyard was not usual. The next street was a semi-circle so everyone's back yard abutted mine. That is, my backyard jutted into everyone else's back yard instead of having an alley. Mine was the last property to sell because of this unusual thing about it. I had six backyard neighbors. It is a very large yard. 

Any neighbors outside would have heard that.

But the dog did relax.

That was the thing that snapped her out of her mental state. 

It took me to yell to change the entire dynamics. 

Now she could think of nothing else but listen to me. 

I rapidly finished up the session and praised her effusively. Now everything was back to normal. 

But the weird thing was, that new command, "relax" worked perfectly thereafter. Something about the sound of the word perhaps the x in the word that makes it a different sound, but it worked beautifully for the rest of her life. Whenever she became a bit edgy, such as people arriving for a party and her increasing inability to herd everyone and keep track of every single person because they're dispersed and they're all moving, then I'd simply tell her in a normal tone, "Honey, relax." And she would. Just like that. Snap. Erase. Relax. 

It is a mind-erasing command. And it's not in any dog-training-textbook. And one of the more useful words that the dog learned on her own. By being a bit of a nutter.