Chico the Wonder Dog...By Request...

When Chico the Wonder Dog was pretty small, he exhibited an extraordinary amount of intelligence and ambition. We were watching a program on tv one evening about spelunking. It showed people going underground into caves, sometimes walking and sometimes crawling on their tummies.

Chico the Wonder Dog was staring in fascination as the program played out. At the end he looked at me, "I want to do that!" (He had to 'look' things at me because, as you know, dogs can't talk)
I looked at him, he might need to wait until he got a little older and bigger. He stared back at me, he was old enough and would never be much bigger! (he was very smart and understanding about such things as size)

I looked at him, "There are no caves around here and you'd need to practice some."

Without hesitation, he jumped off the sofa and ran into the kitchen, nosed open the door to the cabinet where we kept the trash can, dumped it over and came running back in with the large soda cup in the picture.

He looked at me, "Let's get started; Hold this still," and, as the old saying goes, 'the rest is history'.

Later...