Tuesday, May 18, 2010

acting out

Well Butterball has been acting out a lot lately. He has started to like barking. I will be sitting there with my boyfriend watching TV and he will get jealous and start barking and looking up at me. “Mommy stop ignoring me, I want attention. Maybe I have been neglecting my little buddy I am not sure. My focus for the past month has been school and my boyfriend. I am going to introduce you to my boyfriend. His name is Daniel. We do not go to the same high school but we live in the same area. Daniel is going to be leaving in a couple months to attend a military college on the east coast. I have been trying to focus on spending my time with him since its running out. For the next four years, we will have a long distance relationship. We have been together for three years. So poor little butterball has been neglected so that I can spend time with Daniel. I feel bad when he starts acting neglected by barking and whining at me but my priority right now is to devote my time to school and Daniel

Butterball has taken a liking to:
Barking
eating things on top of me (which gets messy)
climbing on the couch to steal my food
climbing on the couch to crawl over anything in my lap
whining
jumping on the couch to get into my face

The little guy is acting out and I am sure once school is over I will be able to devote more of my time to him.
Okay so on Sunday I caved in…..I decided to take Butterball to the dog park. I was so excited and butterball seemed to enjoy his leash and being in the car. He loves to eat his leash when I first put it on him it is like a ritual for him. He also loves to stick his head out the window (do not worry I am holding him to make sure he does not jump out). Well we got out of the car and started to walk to the dog park he seemed as excited as I was…..but once he got inside he nearly pooped his pants. I was expecting this little dog to act like he does with my other dog so I was a bit disappointed that he liked staying as close to Daniel and I. The big doggies seemed very interested in butterball but he would sit there and be scared and once he had the opportunity, he would run over to us. He did enjoy barking and herding the little kids that were there. Oh and chasing the little ball the girl was kicking. He is silly….I am hoping he will get used to bigger dogs, he looks so small and scared. He just needs to break out of his little shell (I have this theory that he has personality traits of Daniel and I…..this is definitely something that reflects me)

"hi mommy i know you have food. now give me some :D"


i took this after our nap
"but mommy, its a long way down, im sleepy can you carry me?"


"play with me!!"



We hope you have a great week!!

4 comments:

Karen and Bailey said...

hehe he is so cute! :) im sure he will warm up at the dog park after a few times!!! :) give it some time. also, poor butterball!!! yes.. summers a great time. u oughta take him to the beach or something! :D

betty said...

I agree with what Karen said, he will probably warm up at the dog park after he's been there a few times. He's probably still checking out everything and seeing "who rules the roost" there, etc.

One thing that really helped us with Koda (and believe you me I am no expert when it comes to dogs) was we took a puppy class at Pet Smart and the trainer there was able to help give good advice on how to control acting out behavior like Butterball is doing. Of course that was five years ago and I can't remember much of it, but I do remember she touched on things like nuisance barking, chewing, etc.

Koda always barks when the phone rings and stays barking when I'm on the phone. Thankfully I'm not on the phone much, but he enjoys being the center of attention and knows the phone takes away attention from him.

good luck with it! seems like it will be an interesting time ahead for both you and Daniel as you guys graduate and move on to the next chapter in your lives

betty

Karen said...

karen- thats one thing im really excited about but i live about an hour away from the beach which will be a hasle to prepare everything for the trip.

betty- i am planning on taking him to puppy classes but i just dont have the time right now. as soon as i am able to i plan on it. his behavior has improved alot just some acting out here and there. maybe the attention thing is a corgi thing im not sure hahaha they do have alot of character.

Lindsey said...

Jasper went through a barking phase, probably around 4 months old. He would stare at me and just bark like crazy....mostly when I was watching tv. He quickly grew out of it though, and now he never barks! I'm sure it's just a phase :)