Dogs can smell 500 times better than humans, they hear 100 times better and they are 50 times better at eating household appliances.

Take my Belgian tervuren Cadence. Please.

The other day I came home from work to find that Cade had eaten the TV remote control device. Worse yet, it was on the brink of March Madness, the college men’s basketball tournament where many people go ga-ga filling in brackets and America’s productivity for two weeks dips slightly below Moldova’s.

My instant reaction was to bark at Cadence.

I have never been a patient person.

But I have vowed this year to become more patient and to train the dogs via the positive reinforcement method. In the event of a minor irritation, I am to count to 10 before saying anything. In a major aggravation, 100.

With Cade I made it to 1 1/2 before exploding.

Happily, I was able to calm down quickly, in the time it took for gas prices to rise just 10 more cents a gallon.

I positively reinforced Cade by telling him that unlike some newspaper folks I believe TV has a more promising future than ex-New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, the moralizer who got caught with a high-priced call girl. After all, TV comes in color. It has moving pictures and sound. And I love the TV almost as much as I love Cadence, and now I would have to watch the movie “Forrest Gump” over and over until I could order a new remote.

“Life is like a box of chocolates,” I told Cade, “and ha ha ha you can’t have any because they’re very bad for you.”

I did learn something from my 23-year association with the Better Half, my wife Tina, who died last September.

She was an expert in all things dog. Tina willed three loving companion animals to me that are helping me get through grieving by occasionally distracting me with their humorous antics, like hurling dinner on the sofa and turning the yard into a bone hunter’s paradise.

Tina knew dogs.

She had encyclopedic recall about confirmation, diet, grooming and which Poodle would win the nation’s biggest show, the Westminster Classic.

She knew about dog first aid, and the habits of dogs left alone for 10 hours while a person goes to work – sleep, chew up the couch, sleep, spread garbage all over the kitchen floor, sleep.

Tina would say it’s my fault for leaving the remote control within reach.

Besides, Cade was probably tired of standing in front of me with those liquid chocolate eyes begging for attention while I looked over his head at the latest permutations of “American Idol,” “Extreme Home Makeover” and the rise and fall of the Belmont University basketball team.

Having a superiority complex, like the state of Texas except with more body fat, I always believe this will be the year when I correctly choose which team of young men in knee-length shorts excels in the college basketball tournament.

Invariably, I go down like the stock market.

Within the first 36 hours of the tournament I am burnt toast.

When my bracket busts, I begin counting to 100. This year I got to 1 1/2 before I began pulling out what’s left of my hair.

Reach the author at jpetersen@lagrandeobserver.com .