Bessy was three when we held one of her Christmas presents down and encouraged her to rip off the paper. With our enthusiastic cries of, “Get it! Do it! That’s it!,” and, “Good Girl!,” she took to her task like a fur-covered shark! Her precision was unbelievable. As we rotated the box, she would tear off a piece of paper, spit it out and keep going back until she removed all the wrapping.
We had so much fun, and she enjoyed her new task so much that after she had unwrapped her presents, each of us would call her over and ask for her help in unwrapping one of ours. She loved it. She instinctively understood that her job was to remove the paper, but not to bite into the box.
Even when we had yummy treats wrapped for her, she never disturbed any presents under the tree. She always waited until Christmas eve and Christmas morning when we gave her the signal to do her duty.
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from Jim in NC