Every morning I let Samspon decide which way he would like to go. Since he knows the school traffic crossing guard will give him a milkbone, that's always the first stop on our route. Yesterday was trash day. So the trash crew was making their rounds. When they stopped next to us to pick up a neighbor's trash, all the guys came over and greeted Sampson. One guy said "Hold on a minute, I've got something for killer." And he proceeded to hop into the cab of the truck and grab a milkbone for Samspon.
Then they told me that they were kind of sorry for teasing and scaring Bill because he really did have an un-natural fear of dogs. So I suggested that Bill give Sampson a milkbone just to show Bill that Sampson wouldn't bark or hurt him. After about 5 minutes of coaxing, Bill finally opened the door to the truck and with his hands shaking offered Samson a milkbone, which Sampson delightfully accepted. Bill still has a ways to go to get over his phobia of dogs, but Sampson just helped him take a big first step. We'll try again next Tuesday.
Sampson however, now believes he is in a magical place called "milkbone-land." Now everyone that passes by, Sampson looks at them expectantly - "Will you be giving me a milkbone?" You can see what he's thinking.
When we passed the poor high school girl who's hair has turned purple, Samspon sat down in front of her. She looked at me and said "Like, what does he, like, want?" I told her that lot's of people have been giving him milkbones and now he's sort of expecting it from everyone and that right now he's wondering if you'll be giving him a milkbone. She said, and I'm not making this up, "What are those, are they, like, special bones, like, made from, like, milk?" I just knew I was going to crack up, so I just said "yup, let's go Sampson" and we continued on our walk. I didn't want to laugh at her, poor thing probably gets enough of that at school.
