LOL Sally!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It looks like Frankie was letting you know just how he feels!  I don't want to, so how do you like this?  Now you can pick it up!

It seems like Frankie and Brownie have a lot in common!

Lol! Yes ma'am that pup def owns you & i think its safe to say your not getting your chair back! 😉 grouchy cat moe agrees, sassy friends are the best. Especially when your winning at a game of steal mom's seat!

So I'm on the late show!  These just gave Rich and I a much need laugh.  Cookie would SO APPROVE of Frankie's methods.  In our house, the rules loosen at 10 and every year after that (as long as the dog isn't putting themselves or anyone else in danger) so by 13 or 14 there really are no rules.  Cookie used to come get Rich every night at dinner time and ask for an appetizer.  

By the time she was 12, she started behaving just like Frankie.  "Nice stack of important papers you've got there...it would be a shame if anything happened to them!"  And they go flying.  She would make eye contact with me as she selected an item and tossed it off the coffee table while wagging her tail.  Sometimes she'd warble like a hound dog too right before she did it.  Did FRANKIE teach her this????  Then she'd prance a little as it hit the ground and if I didn't comply, she'd pick something else.  Somehow she new my value system and would start with low value items and then work her way up to say, my water glass.  that she'd normally drink out of instead of tossing it.

My dad came and spent a month here in October of last year so he could teach me how to fish.  While he was here, Will fell in love with him.  My dad has always been an animal person and almost every day, he came home with a new toy for Will.  Rich now knows where I get it from.  Somehow, a new tradition of Will getting a frosty paw each and every night at 10:30 happened and we have no idea how.  Just by the time my dad left, Will had us all trained.  He would come sit in my lap, all 94 lbs, starting sometimes as early as 9:45 but most of the time around 10:15.  He would show me where the freezer was located.  I'm pretty sure he could open it if he wanted to but he was polite and waited for me.   Will was a gentleman and could have countersurfed but never did.  His head was above all the counters and the table.  The only time he ever stole ANYTHING it was a personal sized watermelon.  I have no idea how he did it but it was the first time we left him free in the house.  The thing was the size of my head and weighed 6 or so lbs.  We came home to him enjoying the spoils of his kill.  I could not stop laughing.  He was SOOO proud of himself but silly boy ate some of the rind and he paid for that for 2 days with very impressive bowel movements.  But not only was he proud of himself, he felt that the pack should share in his kill.  BTW, Will's last meal was watermelon.  I didn't realize it was going to be his last meal but I'm happy that it was something he loved.  Cookie had a McDouble plain and Nixon had a Bo Jangles biscuit.  

Adventures with our first grey, RC MIss Kitty, were often amusing.  Rich and I have a very good relationship and we don't fight over anything EXCEPT care of the dogs.  Kitty got tired of hearing it and split the chores up between us and was very strict in maintining ownership.  Only Rich was allowed to feed and water her.  She could smell if I put the food in her bowl and wouldn't touch it because it was tainted somehow.  I was responsible for all walks.  I could pick a piece of string and she would get excited that it might be a leash.  Rich could pick up the leash, walk around the house with it, wear it, and she wouldn't even look at him.  ALL of our dogs have maintained this idea that Rich is not a dog walking person and it is with great reluctance that any of the dogs would go for a walk with him.  To break the obssessive nature of the sight of the leash, I had to randomly pick it up and carrying it around the house.  She soon knew when I was just being weird taking the leash to go hop in the shower but she was always at the door before I even picked up the leash for a walk.  I must telegraph something because all the dogs have known my thoughts.  Like when we went to the first Viginia gathering and I was packing up the car.  Nixon was chasing me around the house to know when we were leaving.  How do you know???

So for the people who are like, "YOU'RE NOT ALPHA!!!" in this relationship, no, I am not in the way that you think of alpha.  I teach my dogs that when life is scary, they can always depend on me.  I have a plan and I'm looking for them to defer to me when critical decisions need to be made.  How do you teach this? By taking them everywhere, shaping the good behaviors, and talking to them.  I have pictures of Nixon, Cookie, and I in the Ocean.  Cookie is having the time of her life.  She loved water.  Nixon is only in there because I asked him to come in with me.  This was the year before he peed all over the fisherman's beer and fish.  Nixon loved walking on the beach for miles but wading wasn't his thing.