Lucy's a user. LW should dump her!

I love the last line. Perfect.

Well, of course she pooped in his suitcase! Suitcase = going away.

TINY BRAT?????

Wrong! She is an exceptionally smart dog that knows how to get what she wants when she can.

She has 'trained' Greg to respond to commands.

And as Nancy noted, Greg needed to be punished because he was going away.

GURL POWER RULES!

"She once even pooped in Gregg's suitcase, proving, I guess, that you only shit on those who enable you."

Awesome line.

DD has decided she wants a yorkie. She'll be waiting a long time. Until she's 18, probably, as I don't care to take on housetraining, plus I'd be afraid we'd lose it in the piles of toys around here. She's awful cute though. Not as cute as our 100 lber, but cute.

"I think of those as real dogs and mine as a pretend one."

I think of M4's beast as a Dog. I think of Lucy as a Doggie!

Funny how they can spot a pushover a mile away, isn't it? My husband spoils our dogs horribly, making me have to be the 'mean mommy' and do all of the training/discipline. 'S ok tho, when we finally settle down (he's millitary, we move a lot) I'm getting a cat. I miss having a purring furrball.

My daughter is always amazed at how differently our dog behaves for me vs. her. She coddles him constantly and doesn't like to discipline him. With 95 pounds of dog, it's up to me to be firm, strict and the enforcer of rules otherwise I would have a destructive, out of control dog. He knows I'm the boss and he will get tons of love and attention...on my terms, not his. He knows my daughter is a pushover and if he whines long enough, he gets what he wants. They really are very smart creatures!

OOoooohhh that picture! Lucy's eyes melt my heart. I would not be able to resist her charms!

It blows me away sometimes how smart dogs are. When I left home, my parents' dogs got fed in the morning and again at 5 pm. Now, they get fed in the morning...and at 3 pm. Why? They've learned that, if they start whining and pestering my mom early in the afternoon, she'll eventually throw up her hands and feed them. They've successfully managed to push their feeding time up by two hours, minute by minute, over the past several years.

Also, one of the dogs barks constantly, so my parents got her a shock collar. She's figured out, however, that if she yowls at a super high pitch, the collar can't detect it. So, if anything, she's become more annoying. Luckily, they live in the middle of nowhere and have a lot of land (so the "neighbors" are barely within shouting/barking distance).

Animals know.

My mom is exactly like Gregg when it comes to dogs. Here are some of the highlights:

Pekingese-If my mom was on the couch/bed eating something the pekingese would go right up to her face/hands and yank the food away from her and eat it.

Mutt-We would be eating at the table and he would jump on her lap and stick his tongue in the food and jump down.

Pug- Had a 9 o'clock bedtime where he demanded (and bit her until she obliged) to go to bed. He would obstruct her from doing anything else, with his body, and his bites. He also demanded to be with her in the shower, where she would carry him like a baby and he would fall asleep and snore.

I have none of those issues with the dogs.

Actually EXACTLY the same thing happens with kids.

I used to work in a setting where I regularly saw kids from troubled homes. I held them to high standards, and 95% of them quickly adjusted and never acted out in my presence again. Their parents were always shocked~ "How come he listens to you and is crazy at home?" Hmm. Because I don't allow it?

Now I just have to figure out why my little one only cries around me. I am a softie for the babies.

I have an insane calico cat (okay insane and calico are probably redundant).

Point of fact: she's a cat. Cat's don't listen to anyone, most of the time.

This one, however, has learned that she will SIT to get her nightly allotment of wet cat food (although she cries pitifully the entire time, because I'm starving her, yanno) but she WILL sit. And when she tries that half-assed "half-sit" thing, I call her on it. She actually almost rolls her eyes like a belligerent teenager, but she will sit. Because I have food.

I'm under no illusion who runs the house here. :D

She does seem to know I'm the boss (or, as a cat, she's letting me think that, who can say? She has no opposable thumbs and therefore cannot open the can of cat food) but she tests me at every turn.

My boyfriend is her bitch. Totally.

He walks in the door and she flops down to be petted. Not only does he pet her, he gets down on the floor with her. He is so pwned. She has him wrapped around her little toe, and don't think she doesn't know it for a second.

1.) It's only that dogs love humans so much that I try to tolerate humans as much as possible.

2.) I've never cried after any human I have known has been dead for more than a few days, but 7 years, 10 years, 15 years I still tear up when I think of my passed on pooches. Heaven for me would be a giant forested lake with me and all my old dogs for eternity.

3.) My first dog was a daschund my Dear Old Dad found in a parking lot that had been severely burned with acid. My Dad was not a warm and fuzzy but he nursed that dog back to health and he lived for 7 or 8 more years happy as can be. (Actually my Dad and Oscar the dog died at about the same time.) I think that was my greatest lesson of compassion growing up.

"Their parents were always shocked~ "How come he listens to you and is crazy at home?" Hmm. Because I don't allow it?"

Kids listen to others the same reason people listen to their bosses without backtalk, but not their spouses. It's a completely different relationship type.

Actually kids save their best acting out for parents because parents love them and they feel secure enough to. DOesn't have a thing to do with allowing it. It's a sign of a child secure in their relationship. Enabling it and not setting limits leads to a host of problems, true, but limits doesn't end the acting out.

My dog does not act out. At that size, he would hurt or kill someone if he did. Lots of traning and reinforcement, and limits. He's a spectacular dog.

I've heard the same thing about my big Standardbred horse-- in fact ALL the horses behave differently when I'm around. We're buddies!

Daghain - yes. You never really train a cat, it's an ongoing negotiation for life. You *have* to stay boss, or they'll run rings round you.

Amy, a lot of people with small dogs let them get away with too much - as a couple of people have noted, you can't do that with big dogs because it's too dangerous. I'm glad you're not one of them. A bit of pampering from Gregg won't hurt much though.