When my mom came over, she rang the doorbell, and that instantly set Mia off barking at the door and then at my mom. Typically she never barks at my mother, so this was not normal for her. She barked and jumped and barked and jumped, and finally she settled down. Then I had to drag her into her crate kicking and screaming, shut the door, and then she whined. Well, sorry dog, mommy has chores to do.
After that quick errand, I decided to take Mia to the dog park for an hour to run around before having guests over. This didn't go well. We got into the park and immediately Mia went right up to the only child in there and started barking at her. Luckily she was like 11, and not a really little kid. She barked and barked, and finally stopped and the little girl ended up playing with her for a while. So why bark at the kid?
I was warned yesterday that there is a mean shepherd dog that likes to play at the park on weekend mornings and today we met her. The minute the dog arrived she went right after Mia. The dog was Mean. Later, they got into a tug of war battle that lasted close to to 10 minutes - my baby won.
I knew that Mia had some toy aggression from our trainer with other dogs, so I was a little worried when they started to play with a frisbee. It was fine, she wasn't any more aggressive with the toy than any of the other dogs. Then suddenly and without warning the mean dog attacked Mia, they were fiercely jumping on each other clawing, biting, etc. There was no blood, and the owner of the meanie broke it up after a few seconds but it didn't make me happy. More passive dogs came into the park after that to help the dynamic and there was no more funny business, and we left after about an hour of play and prepared for having guests over.
A couple girlfriends came over... and I tried a new tactic this time. Instead of having them ring the bell and open both doors, I left only the glass doors closed so that she could see them coming and not be so surprised when the doorbell rang. It definitely worked a lot better, she barked a few times maybe even a handful and then jumped on them upon entry (sigh) but it was still much better than when she rudely greeted my mother this morning. A few minutes later when I was showing them around the house, Mia peed on the basement floor. She's Never peed on the basement floor before, and it's been over a month since her last bathroom accident and that was at the vet office not in the house. I find that really puzzling. She may have gotten overly worked up or something, I'm not sure. After that she was really well behaved and occasionally barked at other dogs that walked by or walkers but not half as much as she used to. I was at least able to get her to stop pretty immediately and she knew that she was doing something wrong so that's something.
After all that barking and all that craziness, my little pumpkin is curled up in a ball and snoozing. Must be nice... oh and then another barking fit. Today is not her best day.
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