Itzl is gaining confidence on all four of his feet, enough that he keeps his feet on the ground when he twists to alert.
See?
It's time for the train. Itzl twisted on all fours to look towards the train track, then gave me the signal that said "train". I just recently found a book on signing with dogs. I thought it was for me to send signs to him, but it's really about me teaching him the signs to tell me what he means. Itzl has been doing that for years, but instead of me creating and teaching him the signs, he created them himself. He waves a paw like he's sword fighting to alert me to the sounds of light saber fights nearby, he looks towards the train tracks and tracks his head like he's watching the train cars pass for "train", he looks up and then swoops his head to alert me to low flying helicopters or fireworks - anything in the sky, really. He lifts his right front paw to his chest and drops it then lefts it again to alert me to sirens. He smacks his lips at the noon testing sirens because that means "lunch time". But in this pic, he's alerting on the train:
And look - he kept all four paws on the ground.
Here, he's sniffing the fire hydrant that gets visited by all the dogs on the grounds - and he not only kept all four paws on the ground, when he stretched forward to sniff farther, he pushed forward with his left hind paw, too.
This one is just because he didn't notice the fence and he walked right through it - on all four paws.
I know he looks asleep, but he's really alerting on the intercom sounding.
The book I found is inspiring me to document all of Itzl's sign language and to see if I can't help him refine it. Then he can really tell me what he needs to without me guessing so much. There's even a website for animal sign language! So guess what I'll be doing?