George finished his breakfast first and immediately started on some elaborate communicative dance. He took a few steps towards the hilltop, barked, looked back, paused and then rushed over to Bob, before repeating the ritual. You didn't have to be a mind reader to get the message.

“What? You want to go up that hill? Another walk already? We just got back. Give a man a break."

Discouraged, George gave up on any open moves towards the hill. Instead he lay at Bob's feet, giving the man a pitiful, defeated look; clearly the dog was still angling at another long, uphill walk. Bob had other plans though. The two of them had business to attend to. Training if you will.

Mind, Bob didn't fault the dog for not killing Rad and company; on the contrary, he was pleased with how things had turned out. George was Bob's friend and companion. It was for the best that he hadn't become weapon and murderer. That being said, the episode had taught Bob the value of clear human-canine communications. Bob had instructed George to breathe fire; George had given Bob a puzzled look and largely ignored him. In a real fight, that would have been the end of them both. Conclusion: Bob needed a consistent way of getting George to breathe fire.

The topic was not purely academic either. Chad was gunning for Bob's neck. The group had practically admitted as much. On top of that, Lad had strongly hinted he had some way of tracking Bob. In other words, Bob and George had twenty four hours to build their skills, before a highly-motivated and veteran group of killers hunted them down. They'd be no further bribes, since Bob had supposedly already handed over his life savings. Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice, I'll put you in the ground. They'd have to stand and fight.

Bob downed as much of the nutrition pack as he could; it almost proved too much for his poor stomach which made a series of revolutionary grumblings, but ultimately accepted the interverse swill. He threw the empty container into the little bathroom bin. He paused. And then threw the still-full, salmon-flavored container beside it. His stomach thanked him heartily.

Breakfast out of the way, they could finally train. Bob stood up with much unnecessary groaning and headed outside. George, conveniently misinterpreting, jumped after and started up at the hillside.

"Come back, George." George stopped, looked back and decided he'd wait for Bob to catch up. Very magnanimous. Bob, however, walked away from the hill and searched for another muddy clearing. George whined and whistled, but Bob was careful not to look round and after a short battle of wills the dog caved and came over to where Bob was standing.

"Let's see where we are right now," Bob pointed George at a larger stone, "Fire!" George blankly ignored the command. It was probably Bob's fault to be honest. He spent a lot of time talking directly at George and George had learned by now to ignore the incoherent ramblings of his master. Some dogs just enjoy barking.

Bob squatted down, "George, when I say, 'fire', I want you to shoot out that magical fire breath of yours. Got it?"

George beamed up at Bob and barked loudly. Who doesn't enjoy playing?

"Good you got it right? Great, great, let's go again." Bob pointed at the stone and shouted, "Fire!"

George jumped at the sudden, loud noise and looked excitedly over at Bob. Bob sighed. Why had he ever thought George would be capable of this?

Bob puzzled over the problem for a few minutes. Maybe George hadn't quite understood that "fire" was a command word yet. He had probably assumed it was one of those other, numerous, meaningless sounds that Bob enjoyed making for unexplainable reasons. Let's try to put George in the mood. Bob stood in front of the dog with raised index finger:

"Sit." George came to attention in the noble posture of his species.

"Shake," George extended his left paw to Bob's open palm and then his right paw.

"Lie Down." George flattened himself against the ground.

"Roll Over." Bob motioned a circle with his finger and George obediently rolled over.

"Wait." George froze, doing his best to look unconcerned, but really sneaking glances at Bob and at his outstretched finger.

Bob was misty-eyed, searching through the system shop for some affordable dog treats. A plastic see-through container dutifully materialized in front of Bob. Bob caught it with his free hand, unscrewed the lid and placed one brown sphere before George's nose. The dog was evidently tempted, but George nobly resisted his animal instincts.

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"Release." Bob relented and George snapped up the treat, chewing fiercely, while Bob patted him on the head and praised him.

This sequence of commands was the hard boundary on George's abilities. George had always fiercely ignored the "come," "heel" and "drop it" commands. Somehow the dog felt those commands violated his personal freedom. It didn't help that ignoring them tended to lead to good outcomes.

If George didn't come, Bob probably would come or would pull out some treat to tempt him over. If George didn't heel, Bob would fold immediately and either increase his pace to match the dog or slow down to let George sniff whatever had taken his fancy. If George didn't drop whatever he was holding, Bob would offer something of greater value in trade. Bob couldn't tell if the dog was clever or stupid. It did occur to him now that he tended to be on the losing side of each transaction. Maybe that was answer enough.

Even the handful of commands George would obey needed to be given in exactly the same order. Namely the previously demonstrated one. If Bob tried to jump straight to the "Lie Down" command, George would give him a skeptical look, as though he thought Bob might have forgotten how the game was supposed to be played. Sometimes, if Bob was lucky, the dog would shrug and obey, but frequently he'd stubbornly wait until things were done properly.

Ok, now to business. The deal was firmly established and fresh in everyone's mind. Bob would give George a treat if George obeyed his instructions. There we go. George had finished his treat and was eying Bob hopefully. Or rather he was eyeing the plastic container of dog treats in Bob's arms. Good, the dog was hooked.

Bob pointed at the stone: "Fire!" George walked over to the stone, sniffed it and then looked back at Bob. It's just an ordinary stone, the dog's expression seemed to say. Bob facepalmed. Some dogs are made for combat and some dogs are made for love. George fell into the latter camp.

Bob tried to plan out his next move. What had gotten George to breathe fire last time? Last time, George had shamelessly attacked Mrs. Mud Sphere. Well that was worth a try.

Bob sculpted another little mud ball, Miss. Mud Sphere and set her up on top of the stone. George squinted suspiciously at the mud. He stepped back, he inhaled. Bloody hell. What did the dog have against spherical mud?

"Sit." Bob called out just in time. George caught himself and folded himself up into a seated position. Bob paused here a moment. What should he do? Jump straight to fire? He was still standing right beside the stone target. Inside the firing range. He'd just creep out. George twitched impatiently.

"Shake." George stretched out one paw and then the next.

"Lie Down." George fell to the ground.

"Roll Over." The dog completed a full rotation.

"Wait." The dog stilled.

"Wait, wait, wait," Bob put as much distance as he could between himself and the stone.

"Fire!" George jumped up, breathed in and bathed the stone in an explosion of orange flames.

It had actually worked. Bob rushed over and showered the dog in praise. George strutted up to his master and accepted his treat as justly deserved homage. They were a little too close to the bomb zone and Bob ended up swallowing down a mouthful of the black, oily smoke billowing off the stone and its surrounding. He promptly evacuated the scene, but he still had to spend the next minute coughing his lungs out. On the whole, however, he was delighted with the turn of events. This was progress. Now he just had to reinforce the lesson until it stuck.

Twenty or so attempts later the landscape was looking blacker than Bob remembered. George really wasn't good for the environment. They'd had to relocate a couple times after the devastation become too much for Bob's sensitive respiratory system to process. George, annoyingly, seemed largely unaffected. Bob shaded his eyes and looked over their practice area. There were black stains, where smoke continue to drain up into the sky. It looked like the aftermath of a bomb run.

Reinforcement had gone splendidly. Well mostly splendidly. Well somewhat successfully. For one, Bob had been able to gradually ween the dog of his mud-rage (though many innocent mud souls were sacrificed in the process). George no longer attacked ball-shaped mud citizens on sight. Better yet, George would now fire in a pointed direction. That meant Bob would be able to direct George in combat. So a big win there. Tangible progress. The only tangible progress of the day so far.

However... yes, tragically, there is a however. There was a complication. Now whose fault it had been was an open question, probably an unanswerable one, definitely unanswerable. Certainly nobody could claim it was Bob's fault. And yet, the thing was, George had firmly internalized the "fire" command as the final command of the whole command sequence.

In other words, George flat out refused to use fire (at Bob's direction), unless Bob went through the whole damn ritual, sitting and shaking, lying down and rolling over. This was more than a little frustrating. The two of them would be a complete laughing stock. While their enemies tried to cut them down, Bob would be walking George through his tricks.

However... yes thankfully there is another however. Bob knew how to think outside the box. To shore up this weakness, Bob had been making the dog practice the priming sequence over and over. These efforts were not without fruit. George could transition from sit to shake, from lie down to roll over, with lightning speed, blurring one motion into another as Bob called out command after command. He wasn't the same dog he'd been an hour ago. He was a dancer, a flowing mover between forms. Bob was proud of the dog's progress. He ruffled George's head.

Of course, no matter how elegantly and smoothly George could shift from one position to the next, the change was not instantaneous. Even on his best runs, it still took George a couple seconds to reach the primed, "wait" state. A couple seconds in the middle of a combat situation would be the difference between death and victory. A couple seconds too slow was a couple seconds too late. Was the new and improved George up to task of defending his helpless master Bob from the infamous trio, Rad, Chad and Lad? Bob sure hoped so.