This about sums it up.
Whew. Just a lot going on. This animal we visited, kept safely in a cage.
This guy, should not be driving. Period. Thinks he knows how to back up already. I'm just saying. Maybe wait til 4 for parallel parking.
This one. Likes to nap. Dance around. Get licked by dogs.
These things. Also, this photo not posed. They just did that. In the like 5 minutes of entire 2 days where there were not total jerks. What happened? Of all of them, Black Beauty only respectable houseguest. I used to have all easy traveling dogs. Now I have a completely evil stalker named Otterpop, total jerk Gustavo with resident big dog, and Ruby's new drama queen victim personality change. Those three, complete separation anxiety meltdown cases which meant shuttling dogs along with car seats and bananas and cheerios in little ziploc bag around the greater Los Angeles area. Chihuahua, just buzzes around unfettered and oblivious and happy to do whatever activity dujour was. Like how about get stuffed in a crate and drive on the freeway some more? SUPER! Would be the answer from Black Beauty.
Am actually worried the easiest dog in the world may be causing some of the household unrest. Everyone seems to love her, she loves everyone. But Otterpop has flipped a serious screw loose somewhere and can't be separated from Ruby, or else when put back together with her acts like crazyland and not in a good crazyland way. When kept close, everything just fine. Twisted and bizarre and challenging to manage and just really from left field the last couple weeks, and only thing besides Obama skyrocketing in polls and stocks rollercoastering is addition of Black Beauty to household pack. Really weirdo and amplified when we were away from home, and making me wonder if Chihuahua was the catalyst of it, can Chihuahua stay? I will not have another dog fight happen between my dogs. That's what I have to say about that.
3 comments:
What would Cesar do?
Since you didn't ask, and he hasn't been in contact with me, I'll just guess.
I guess that he would agree that the underlying culprit is Black Beauty.
Don't have time to outline substance of my diagnosis, but the cure would be that you boss Black Beauty around a lot more, obviously, even if she doesn't need it. Since she is so sweet and perfect, you can't do a lot of corrections like telling her to go lie down in a mean voice (which might work better), but you should make her do some tricks, wait for her food, whatever, to alleviate the reactive dog's (Otterpop's) hyper-vigilance that is making her get in trouble a lot and de-stabilizing her more and which is also probably what is unsettling Ruby. Is BB sitting in Gary's lap a lot, still?
Just channeling Cesar, here, but I think you need to re-establish clear pecking order, with you at the top and BB back way down where Timmy was. (I know they're not chickens, but I have to go to work now, not fix mixed metaphors.)
Dogs take time to adjust to changes in their routine. They were still adjusting to BB when you packed everyone up for a roadtrip to a crazy place (any place with little kids is a crazy place for dogs, oui?). Not too surprising that they're all out of sorts, IMO.
Cure is the same as always: create routines, set boundaries, be consistent, firm and fair in enforcing them, and be patient. Things should settle down once everyone figures out the new plan. Be patient.
If BB were fighting with someone, it might be different in that you could be trying to make two incompatible dogs live together, but since it's just the other dogs acting out, that suggests to me that the catalyst isn't so much BB as the fact that things have changed. They can adjust to that, just not as quickly as one might want. No need to shoot/rehome the messenger. Be patient.
Create routine. Set boundaries. Be patient. The dog person's mantra. It worked with Gustavo's weave poles. It should work for this too. Might even work to solve the "global financial crisis", if we could just get this @*^&*$! election over with.
Yeah, working on the normal and all that. Trying to keep pecking order reinforced, consistent. But it is weirding me out so much that one dog can have such a personality change. The others, I think are just reacting in reaction to Otterpop. But Otterpop has just thrown a gasket and seems like a whole different dog. Not in a nice, rubbing genie lamp way and getting a whole new and improved, Lassie type dog. More like gone over to the evil side and I have to figure out how to bring her back. Quick.
Post a Comment