dominance

The Momma likes to make fun of me for reading How to Speak Dog.

Let her mock. Because Puppy and I get along so much better now. I'm much more patient with her, which helps me rein her in a bit better. I've taken to carefully selecting language that I want her to learn and that I want to have meaning for her. And I think I understand why she does some of the things she does. It doesn't mean that all her behavior is excusable--even though I know she's jumping on people to greet them because she wants to touch noses, it's still not allowable behavior.

Of course, I still derive great pleasure in her attempts to demonstrate her dominance. I spent much of yesterday morning curled on the couch watching this past week's episodes of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report with her. When I would get up to change out the laundry, she would take my place on the couch. I would then instruct her to get off the couch, which she would begrudgingly do, before I invited her back on. Mostly I found it amusing instead of obnoxious, as I would have a month ago.

This morning, Puppy brought me great amounts of joy as she exercised her dominance over other dogs. A man had two of his three dogs off their leash over by one of the neighborhood parks. This generally makes me nervous because I don't know the temperament of the other dogs. One of them came over and decided to greet Puppy. So I let Puppy greet the retriever. (I've noticed recently that dogs get a bit more aggressive if their owners immediately pull them away from other dogs). Puppy put her paw on the other dog's shoulder (standard sign of dominance). Then they did the rest of the sniff each other up and what not. At this point, the second unleashed retriever came over. Again, Puppy demonstrated her dominance. All in all, it was a friendly meet-n-greet.

We started to walk away, but this is also the park that marks the halfway point on our walk, so I like to let Puppy empty her bladder. After doing so, the retrievers came back over (I assume we were more interesting than the training lessons the man was putting the third dog through) and did the sniffing thing all over again. Again, I just let Puppy do it. And this time, because Puppy is The Almighty Queen of the Universe, she began mounting one of the dogs. I let her do this too. I must confess that this always makes me giggle because it's just funny for me to watch.

The man did not find it so amusing. "Is that a boy?"

"Nope. She's just dominant over your dogs."

Rule of thumb: If you don't want Puppy mounting your dog, keep your dog on a leash.