Breakthrough?
After some more encouragement by us, Hannah finally stopped growling helplessly at Dante and started giving as good as she was getting, plus some extra for her size and weight. Go Hannah! Suddenly all the dominance tricks he was trying on Hannah got turned back on him. And unlike Hannah, he had a grand time with it.
But a word of warning: you know how cats, playing, go thump thump thump up and down the hall at night? Imagine those two dogs in the picture doing that and the size of those thumps.
It might have been our fault; we’ve taught her to be submissive to us, and she’s learned to just avoid conflicts with the cats. But hey, apparently our praise and encouragement can remedy that.
It’s amusing that even while Dante pushed-pushed-pushed on Hannah, he has remained totally intimidated by Demon, who can make him whimper with just a yellow-eyed stare.
One of the high points this evening was when he thought he’d see if he could use Hannah’s avoidance to push her away from her food, even though he had his own right in front of him. We sat in the other room while Hannah was eating and he’d stare past me towards her, stare at me and then try to dodge me. I’d push him back and speak sharply. This repeated a few times and then he started getting creative, moving toward alternate routes, at which point I exerted more authority, made him lay down and put his food between his paws. At which point he gave up and started eating it, while staying lying down.
It is interesting comparing the ways in which Kevin, Raymond and I interact with the dogs. Raymond just can’t put any sharpness into his voice, and both dogs tend to ignore him whenever it’s convenient as a result. Kevin can do the sharpness, but he tends to get annoyed and repeat himself if they’re distracted. This can encourage disobedience if they’re being willful. For example, when a dog has decided to make a break for the wild life, chasing them and shouting is worse than useless. Ambling along after them, but not paying attention to them, and taking their collar as they’re distracted sniffing something works better. Or, walking away, with the right kind of dog. Dogs play by chasing each other. If you chase a dog, they run.
I’ve never been the sort of person animals love to snuggle with. It irritated me when I was younger but I’ve come to terms with it, because Hannah comes to me when she wants something. I’m the one she communicates with, I’m the one she listens to best, and that’s pretty darn cool. I hope I can develop something like that with Dante, too. He already comes to me when he wants comfort, like when he was heartbroken today when 1.) Raymond and Kevin went to work and 2.) Kevin took Hannah outside without him this evening.