DuPont enjoys rough horseplay with other dogs. This includes, but is not limited to, grabbing the nearest dog's scruff in his mouth and playing tug with it. Some dogs enjoy it, some do not.
Since DuPont's arrival, I've been less than attentive to my own dogs, so for the past few days I've been putting some extra time into one on one play with them, games of Frisbee, tug, ball, etc. Once the sun sets though, it's difficult to continue outdoors, so we have to bring it into the living room. Well, I threw the Frisbee and when DuPont saw my Aussie move, he dove and grabbed her by the scruff in his usual fashion. I hollared my usual 'DuPont! No!' to no avail. My mood was less than stellar last night, (capped by arriving home from work with two arms full of groceries and discovering that I had to beat the hubby's new sprinkler in flip flops that turn wet concrete into an ice skating rink), so I freaked out a bit watching my poor little Aussie get DuPont induced whip lash... Again.
I stood up, stomped my foot, balled my fists, clenched my teeth and YELLED at DuPont. (Think of the Acme cartoon characters when somebody gets their sandwich stolen for the eighth time...steam starts rolling out from their ears, faces turn bright red, glowing eyes burning into their opponent)
Normally when I yell, nobody listens to me. Especially DuPont. Oh, I yell a lot by the way... I'm a yeller. I am always raising my voice at my dogs. I swear they don't hear me otherwise.
I think the lack of reaction maybe comes from the fact that even though I'm yelling, they can tell I'm barely half serious because I continue doing whatever it is I'm doing. But this time, my body language must have sent a more serious message than my voice did, because everybody froze, and DuPont hit the deck.
I shook my head and huffed out a breath, and walked to the kitchen to calm myself. As I moved by him, DuPont averted his eyes and stayed on the floor.
Shit. I broke DuPont.
So now on top of everything else, the guilt begins to swarm through me. I get on the floor and start baby talking at DuPont. His tail wags a little and he gets up to come say hi. I walked back to the couch and invited him up with me, and for the next hour, DuPont is a mooshy body of wrinkles who refuses to allow me to stop petting him.
DuPont does not like people being mad at him. He'll blow off the half assed stuff, but is incredibly sensitive to real, true scolding.
The moral of the story? Don't yell at DuPont. Unless you have time to spend the next hour apologizing to him for it. He milked that for all it was worth.
I knew he was better when he decided to go face to face with our house-dragon.
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