Cosmo Learns to Wait

For as long as he could remember, Cosmo always stopped before crossing the street when his man person said, “Wait.” Sometimes Cosmo stopped before his man said this word, and the man said, “Good boy.”

When they went to the market and Cosmo got tied to the phone booth before his man went inside, he held up his hand and told Cosmo, “Wait.” Then when his man came out he said, “Good boy,” and they shared an ice cream sandwich.

It was hard for Cosmo to wait at the library, though, because he could see his man through the glass doors, but sometimes nice people stopped to talk with him and said he was a good boy.

And when Cosmo went for a ride in the van with his man and woman, he sometimes got too excited when they stopped at the dog park or the beach, and he had to wait until they put on his leash and said, “OK.” Then he could jump out.

One day when Cosmo went to the park where he usually fetched sticks his man threw in the creek, his woman said the creek was too high and the water was too fast, so she wouldn’t throw any sticks for Cosmo. Then Cosmo saw a stick floating by in the big waves and he jumped in to get it, but when he tried to swim back to the bank where his woman was, the current was too strong and carried him down stream to a gravel bar where he could get out.

But Cosmo was on the other side from his woman, so he jumped in again to try to swim across, but he couldn’t make it and had to get out like before. After two more times, Cosmo was tired and stood looking at his woman on the other side, and she said, “Cosmo, wait.” And Cosmo remembered he was supposed to stay where he was when she said that, so he waited by the stream and didn’t jump in again.

Then some new people were talking to his woman, and when she walked away, the new people said, “Cosmo, wait.” So he waited some more, and more and more, and he didn’t know where his woman was and almost couldn’t wait anymore when she came up from behind him and said, “Good boy, Cosmo. You know how to wait.”