I shall begin with the events of Woofstock. Mike and I went to the festival a couple years ago, when we had no dog and the pain of losing my other dog was still too near the surface. When Gimli came to live with us, I always wanted to take him to Woofstock and this year was the first time our schedules allowed us to do so.
We arrived and of course, Gimli was excited due to all the dogs and people and sights and sounds of the city. He'd never been to Toronto either and I'm sure all that hustle and bustle was sensory overload for him.
Mike took control of him and through a series of slow introductions, Gimli calmed down enough so that he wasn't trying to get into every dog's face and get into every owner's pockets for cookies. The atmosphere was still one of chaos, vastly different from the one at the Dog Jog, but at least Gimli was starting to calm down. We walked by each vendor, sampled some cookies and Gimli sniffed a great deal of doggie butts and unbeknown to him, his butt was sniffed a great deal too. Gimli doesn't like other dogs sniffing his butt and often puts up a fight, however I feel he surrendered and allowed the other dogs to sniff away.
We met a great deal of different dog breeds. Gimli was finally able to meet another corgi, who was all too interested our cookie bag, than us. Hmmmm, greedy little Pems!
We met a Spaniel and a French Bulldog.
We even met a little girl and Gimli was such a gentleman, he didn't try to jump on her, he allowed her to pet him. I was soooo very proud of that moment.
Of course, Gimli was his usual dashing self and plenty of people took pictures of him. See for yourself!
Then, a week later, Gimli turned into a monster.
We had guests over yesterday for Father's Day. I was pretty sure, Gimli would be his usual rambunctious self at the beginning of the evening, but that he'd settle down. Boy, was I wrong.
He was excited and then when people ignored him, he became more excited and very barky. Then the whole toy fiasco started.
He fixated on one of his bones and decided he wasn't going to allow anyone near him by grumbling and showing his teeth. Of course, our guests all thought it was funny and so the more they antagonized him, the more he hoarded the toy.
I told Mike about 3 times to take the bone away, he finally did and Gimli calmed down a bit.... Until he started doing the same thing with a different toy. This time, it was full on throwing the toy back and forth, with Gimli going back and forth, sometimes giving him the toy, sometimes doing the "Automatic Corgi" so that Gimli was doing his entire routine like a trained seal. Then, Mike made the mistake of showing the butt wiggle, so now that means its going to be added to the repertoire that Gimli will need to perform before he gets his cheese.
Needless to say, I was livid. But, silly me, here I thought people would respect the rules in OUR house, just like I was made to during that wonderful summer, but I was wrong. I bit my tongue, lest I get branded with ruining Father's day by exerting control over my dog and ending the fun and preventing Gimli's further regression.
After everyone left, we cleaned up and I went to bed. I didn't say a word, I didn't even speak to Gimli, the rage was literally streaming out of my ears like in the cartoons!
Today, I found a training class that we're going to sign up for. The first class is this Saturday. I will do my damnedest to break him of this behavior and to make him focus on me and nothing else.
Failing that, I'll give him commands in only German, maybe that will help...
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