Last Thing I Did For Play

What was the last thing you did for play or fun?

The last thing I did for play was this past Sunday, December 28th, 2025. I was at my daughter’s house and I got to play with her little fox terrier “Kimchi” all day. She is very intelligent and learns new tricks very, very, quickly!

I used a hand signal (palm flat) and move it down toward the floor, while I hold a tiny piece of doggy treat to reward her when she obeys the hand signal. She immediately laid down and I waited for about 5 seconds before I said ‘Good girl’ and brought my hand down to her and she ate the treat off my palm. After repeating this trick several times, I went on to the next trick.

This was a verbal command to do the ‘K-Pop Dance’ by me saying ‘Dance’. She immediately stood on her hind legs and lifted her front legs next to each other in front of her face, and started dancing in a circle. I had a doggy treat in my hand by my left eye and waited for about 5 seconds before I said ‘Good girl’ and lowered my hand with the treat in the palm and she ate it off my palm. After repeating this trick several times, I went on to the final trick that she has learned so far.

The final trick was where I said ‘Look’ and she stared into my eyes. I waited for about 5 seconds, ensuring that she didn’t break eye contact, and then I said ‘Good girl’ and lowered my hand with the doggy treat in the palm of my hand and she ate it off my palm. I repeated this trick several times as well.

After that I threw her favorite dog toy that looked just like an orange fox. I threw it and she chased after it, grabbed it between her teeth and vigorously shook it as though it were alive. I told her to bring it to the couch where I was seated say ‘Bring it here’. She would come over to the couch where there was a 3-step climber against the couch and she would run up the steps onto the couch and bring the orange fox toy to me. I would grab it and made it move around like it was alive and trying to escape from Kimchi’s mouth. The more I wiggled, shook, and pulled the toy the more determined Kimchi was to fight back and clapped her jaws down harder to prevent her ‘prey’ from getting away.

I did this reinforcing her breeding instinct to not let the prey escape. Fox terriers were originally bred for intelligence and be easily trained to hunt rats in Medieval Europe. Because they are a small dog breed, slightly smaller than Chihuahuas, they could go down ratholes to catch and kill rats that were infested with fleas that carried Bubonic Plague.