I'm very conscious of this with my neighbors, who are close by. I taught my dog that she isn't allowed to bark -- which got a bit fucked up recently when the inconsiderate chickie next door left two dogs barking in her yard for a good bit of the morning. The way my dog saw it, I think: "Oh, you mean it's normal for dogs to do this thing?" I've had to work on the "no noise" thing -- something she easily picked up right at the start -- ever since this jerk left these dogs out there. (The small yappy one belonged to a friend of hers, I think, and her dog joined in, in chorus.)

Sara, that is so annoying. Poor little Aida is getting corrected for something she'd already learned. (I take her little muzzle in my hand and say "no noise" while holding it shut for a second.)

Hilarious, Ppen. Cresteds scream, too. It's a horrible sound. The first time I groomed her -- or rather tried (with the little Wahl peanut shaver) -- she screamed like that. Had I not gone out to the breeders, and had Tim, the dad, not groomed her there to teach me, I would have probably fallen apart. She screamed like that for a moment with him and he just chuckled, "Puppy drama!"

The memory of those two words saved me -- did understanding "desensitization," a psychological process where you get someone (or some animal) gradually acclimated to the thing they're afraid. I sat on the couch with her on my lap and held out the shaver in my arm and turned it on for a second…then waited 10 minutes and did the same thing a little closer…eventually "shaved" the back of my hand (no, I do not have hair there!) and eventually, when she was really tired, shaved her little butt area above her tail. At that point, she just turned around and gave me an annoyed look.

How cute! "Puppy drama" I love that term.

I do, too. I think of that whenever my little operatic doggiestar gets a little nutty.