Animal Insting

Barry got into trouble bigtime one night last week because he ate a ginormous hole in Mom's purple blanket, and also a smaller hole.  Anyway, Mom's pretty sure it was Barry who ate the holes, although he might have had some help or at least got the idea from me, but I am pleading the 5th Amendment!  Here's a picture of the blanket with the holes in it.

The purple blanket is one that Mom bought at an estate sale last summer, and she liked this blanket quite a bit because it was all kind of shiny and pretty, and it looked like it hadn't even been used.  Plus it only cost, like, a dollar.  So Mom was very happy to have this nice purple blanket on her bed.  Except that the purple blanket was made for a king-sized bed, and our bed is only a full-sized bed, so the blanket was really big, but Mom cut off one end of it, and that made it a better size for our bed.  It turned out to be lucky that Mom cut that piece off of the purple blanket because now she can use the piece to patch the holes that Barry made.

So that's one example of getting into trouble that happened lately.  And here's another one:  when Uncle Joe and Uncle Tom were here visiting, Gabe bit Uncle Tom on the hand.  Before that, he snapped at Aunt LaDene, who was also here at the time.  The reason he snapped at her was because she tried to pet him on his head, which he doesn't like people to do if he doesn't know them very well.

A lot of people don't realize that dogs don't like it if people reach out over their heads because this is a dominant, threatening sort of gesture when one dog does it to another dog.  So that's why dogs don't like it much.  But lots of people think that is the proper way to pet a dog, even when you have only just met the dog.  Also these same people might look at a dog right in the eyes, which is another thing that's scary and threatening to a dog, so it's no wonder people get bit sometimes when they do this.

Anyway, Mom told Aunt LaDene that she shouldn't reach over Gabe's head like that, but it would probably be okay to pet him on the back or side.  Well, Mom was wrong about this, and when Aunt LaDene tried to do it, Gabe snapped at her again, so Aunt LaDene decided maybe she should not pet Gabe at all, which Mom agreed was a good plan.

The problem with Gabe is that he goes right up to people and acts like he's friendly and stuff, so that's why people are always trying to pet him.  I have told Gabe that he would just be smarter to stay away from people he doesn't know, which is what I do, but he doesn't take my advice because (1) he is a boy and (2) I am just his little sister, and he thinks I don't know anything.

So then what happened was that Gabe got on the sofa right next to Uncle Tom, and Aunt LaDene told him not to reach over Gabe's head, so Uncle Tom tried to pet Gabe on his back, and Gabe snapped at him and made Uncle Tom's hand bleed.  Mom put some ointment and a band-aid on it.  Also Mom apologized a whole bunch.  It seems like Mom is always having to apologize for stuff that my brothers do.  Maybe life would be simpler for her and for me if Mom just got rid of all the boy dogs!

Well, then the other thing that we got in trouble for -- and by "we" I mean Gabe and me -- was that Saturday night when Mom was trying to do her email right before bedtime, we were in the bedroom, playing with the red doggy comforter.  We were growling and playing tug with it, and then Gabe started trying to chew on Mom's bedspread, so Mom kept coming in the room and telling us not to chew stuff up because she did not want another big hole in something like Barry made in the purple blanket.  Mom took a photo of us, but we weren't exactly doing anything bad at that moment.  My mohawk was up, although I don't know if you can see that in the photo.  That's why I was turning around to look at my back.  Or maybe I was looking at my butt.  I can't remember which.  Anyway, after Mom took the picture, we mostly settled down, and no bedding was harmed, which made Mom happy.

So that's all the trouble that we managed to get into during the last few days.  Mel didn't get in any trouble at all, but I think he was just being a show-off about what a good dog he is.  I've told Mel that life isn't any fun if you don't get into trouble occasionally, but he doesn't listen to me, probably for the same reasons that Gabe doesn't!