Community Chat

[JeanLouiseFinch]

I love my dog so much and most of the time he's so sweet and really pretty good. He's very smart and teachable (except for when it comes to counter surfing, which we're trying to work on, but not doing well at yet).
Yesterday was the day of all days. I was busier than usual in the house and didn't really give the dog my undivided attention the way I often do. For starters, I was letting a dessert sit on the back of the stove. I know I shouldn't have trusted him. I left the kitchen for what I thought would be a moment and then got sidetracked. The next thing I saw was the dog scarfing down half of the dessert and running away. I'm just glad it had harmless ingredients and no chocolate. Then throughout the day he would just start acting up, racing around until we stopped him. Then he'd be getting in the way when we would be doing other normal household chores. Later in the afternoon, we had a new visitor to the house. She has her own pets so besides being new with her own scent, she brought the scents of her pets along with her. Our dog went nuts. He was all excited and happy to meet this girl, but then he did something he's never ever done....he did a couple of fast circles and proceeded to pee on the family room floor! It was all so fast, we couldn't even stop him to get him outside. I'm really thinking it was an accident due to the excitement and that he wasn't trying to be bad on purpose, but I'm still new at this and not really sure. So, between eating the dessert, getting in the way, having these crazy spurts of excess energy, and peeing in the house, he was quite a handful yesterday.

Once dinner was over and we settled into a calmer evening, the dog obviously wanted some attention. He tried to get DH to notice him, but he was busy at his computer, as was I. Then the cutest thing happened. One by one, the dog kept bringing toys over to see if he could get me to play with him. I'd stop what I was doing for a couple of minutes and then go back to what I was working on. Then, here he comes with something else. It really was kind of adorable how he was trying to engage me, trying with all the different toys. Finally, I got up and went over on the floor and we had a real play session and some tummy rubs. He was happy then.

This morning, back in our routine, he's back to being the sweetheart I know and love.