A Post Only a Mother Could Love?

There's something you should know: as much as I love him, I have to admit that Austen's not a brainiac. He has mostly mastered sit, and he definitely knows his name, but other than that. . . notsomuch. I like to think that he's not unable to learn, just unwilling, but we are talking about a dog that attempted to poop while lifting his leg the other day.

It didn't work as well as he thought it would.

I've attempted to work with what he does naturally and try to attach a command to it. It's how I taught Scout to give me a high five and it was the most incredibly adorable thing ever (if I do say so myself). The problem is, when I attempt to give Austen any command he puts his ears back as if I'm screaming at him and climbs into my lap so that he can't do whatever it is I'm asking of him.

Every day when I come home from work Austen is so excited that he goes through an elaborate set of welcome home noises that range from "grumpy old man" to "purring kitten" with a little "Copper from the Fox and the Hound hound dog howl" thrown in for good measure. It is seriously so cute it makes me weak, but until today whenever I've turned on the camera he's put his ears back and crawled into my lap (maybe I should just call THAT his trick)

So, I've finally (kinda) succeeded in getting Austen to make some of his cute growly noises on camera. Sadly, in order to do so I've also recorded my impressions of his cute growly noises....which aren't so much cute as pathetic. So here you go:

ENJOY(or at least pretend like you did for that movie of your friend's one year old eating spaghetti)!