Shake!

“Shake.”

“Shake.”

“C’mon, shake!”

The squig looked up at its owner, head cocked to one side in confusion.

“Shake, zog you, shake!”

The squig rolled over, presenting its belly/chin for rubbing. Blue sighed.

“You’s zoggin terrible at this, Mr. Squig”. She chided, but fed him his treat and scratched his belly anyways, much to the squig’s delight. ‘Roll over’ was about the only trick she could teach the beast, so she figured she’d better reward him for it, lest he forget that one too.

Maybe this just required a different approach, Blue reasoned to herself. Maybe just yelling at him until he did what she wanted wasn’t the way to go about things. Manually rolling Mr. Squig back into a standing position, Blue looked her pet right in the eyes, grabbing his face and redirecting the squiggly beast’s gaze to match hers as needed.

“Look at me, My Squig – no, over here you git – now that’s a good Mr. Squig, now shake.” She grabbed one of his claws, lifting it up and down in the facsimile of a handshake. “Shaaake. That’s a good squiggly beast, just like that!” she fed him another bone to reinforce his rigorous training as she let go of his claw “Now shake for me Mr. Squig! Shake!”

The squig looked up at its owner, head cocked to one side in confusion.

“Zog it, you git! Shake!”

Suddenly, something began to click in the small beast’s mind, and Blue could see his mental strain behind his beady little eyes.

“You can do it, boy! Shake!”

The squig raised a claw, looking down at it and at Blue’s outstretched hand, head snapping back and forth between the two objects as if to form some sort of connection between them.

“That’s it, boy! You’ve got it! Now shake!”

Mr. Squig suddenly jabbed his claw out to the side, far away from Blue’s hand, and began to spastically rattle his whole body back and forth, tail and tongue alike flapping with wild abandon from their respective ends. Mr. Squig was indeed shaking.

Blue fed Mr. Squig the rest of the bones she had on her. That was the best zogging trick she’d ever seen.