the underwear drawer

acting out

Is it possible for dogs to get mad at you?

We've been pretty careful with Coop after her injury. Especially since it needed to be restitched recently. That's the $500 laceration, right there, between the vet fees and...well, just the vet fees, I guess. We've been trying to keep her pretty quiet and not bringing her to the dog park (the scene of the accident) for fear that she's going to be too rowdy and tear herself open again. Basically, she hasn't gotten to play with any other dogs for about two weeks.

Cooper was apparently not pleased with this.

On top of the Great Pillow Destruction of 2003, yesterday she got into our bedroom when I wasn't looking and peed on our bed. Peed. On our BED. And it's not like she really had to go, I just took her out two hours prior. And even if so, why of all the spots in our apartment would she decide to climb up onto our bed and pee there? And near the top, where our heads would go. No, this was deliberate. This was an act of rebellion. Our dog was acting out.

On top of the general destruction and peeing-on-things, she's just been generally hyper lately, jumping up on people, digging up things, wanting to play constantly. She was too wound up and not getting enough action. She needed to go to the dog park. So, after some deliberation and decision to keep her T-shirt on at all times, I took her this morning. There are usually fewer rowdy dogs there early in the mornings on weekends, so I figured it would be a good time.

And it was. She nearly got into it with this little pit bull (he put a little hole in her T-shirt--that is to say, my T-shirt) but otherwise her stiches held up well. And now she's finally pooped. A sleepy dog is not a destroying-our-apartment-dog. And that's how we'd like to keep things.