Tiger Mother

I'm worried.

And a little embarrassed.

I think my mother-in-law may think I beat my dogs.

I don't, of course.  Despite being rather openly inclined towards adminstering an elaborate chokehold on LouDog when he's being particularly evil, I've always restrained myself.  When it gets particularly bad, I have researched it.  A little.  If I ever snap, I suspect I'll go with an anaconda chokehold, as it's best for when your attacker is on all fours.  And if LouDog isn't a vicious attack on all fours, I don't know who would be. 

Pure evil.

But, I reiterate, I do not beat my dogs.  Even when I really want to.  Even when they really deserve it.  Like LouDog did yesterday. 

Now, the start of all of this is my fault.  In that I know that LouDog is constantly on the alert for anything that will create an irritating waste of my time and energy, so I should have been more vigilant.  Which is another way of saying that, if LouDog weren't such an unholy brat, I would have been spared quite a bit of Monday afternoon heartache. 

Now, in the depths of Spencer and I's joint unemployment, we're living with my sweet mother-in-law and her equally sweet puppy-at-heart Birdie.  In human years, Birdie is hovering over a hundred years old.  So when she barks at the door to go out, you hop to.  And LouDog, who is much quicker than Birdie, usually scampers out too.  Only this time, the gate door was open.

As a belated preface, LouDog thinks escaping is just hilarious.  Once he's out, he's nearly impossible to catch until he decides he's ready to be caught.  He used to dart at any open door he saw, which made carrying in groceries a nightmare.  Thankfully, he's decided he likes living with us just enough to stay in the house in all but the most egregious of open door events.  And trotting into a backyard with a wide open gate certainly qualifies for an egregious open door event. 

Opportunity beckons.

So, as any evil genius would do when confronted with an open gate, he ran off.  And worse, he convinced poor befuddled Birdie to run off too.  Here's where his evil genius fell a bit short, as old dogs don't run very fast, and Birdie is too sweet not to come back when her name is called.  I don't think she even made it past our cars in the driveway.

LouDog, however, is an old hand at running off.  He knows not to come back when you jiggle a bag of treats at him.  He's not fooled when you open the car door and pretend like you're going on a trip.  And his evil genius runs deep enough for him to know that making me panicked and worried is not nearly as fun as making me irritated and murder-y.  So he stays within eyesight.  He will sniff around at a bush until I'm just out of arms reach.  Then he trots off.  He marked every single bush and tree that is typically out of reach when he's on a leash.  He let me get close once at every other house.  He maximized every potential for making me angry. 

However, I'm more familiar with the neighborhood than LouDog.  And I knew he was headed towards a fairly busy street.  Despite his best efforts, I didn't stay angry and annoyed as visions of speeding cars hitting him ran through my head.  I went over my contingency plan in the event that I ever have to rush the dogs to the emergency vet, and started making adjustments as we were now somewhat far from the house and I was possibly going to have to carry Lou back to the house.  I inherited a fairly strong sense of paranoia from my mother, and it started to kick into full gear. 

As I chased after him, Lou clearly sensed that I was now in full panic mode.  With his plan somewhat foiled, he did the most irritating thing he could have done:  He sprinted into a stranger's backyard, then, as I was trying to get into the backyard, he ran out through a different entrance, ran past me, and ran all the way back to the house. 

By the time I made it back to the house, I was extremely out of sorts and out of breath.  My sweet mother-in-law was doing her grandma thing and petting Lou and telling him he was a good dog for coming back.  At which point I dragged Lou into Spencer and I's room, kicked Waffles out, and shut the door. 

From my mother-in-law's vantage point, I will admit that this makes me look like I beat my dogs.  But like, in secret. 

I don't.  I really don't. 

But somewhere along the way, I was told that you have to let dogs know that you're the boss, and that the best way to do this is by using cues that the alpha dog in a pack would use.  The man telling me this suggested holding the dog down by the neck with your hand and rubbing his gums or something, but that seemed a little too animalistic to me. 

So, what I do instead is puff out my chest and arms, lean over Lou, and growl at him.  Which looks nothing short of incredibly stupid.  And this time in particular I was still breathing pretty heavily from running all over the neighborhood.  And I am still trying to make certain my mother-in-law things I'm somewhat put together and sane.  So I try to do my alpha dog routine in secret. 

In my defense, Lou does usually end up looking fairly contrite, and this time was no exception.  Although I suspect it has far more to do with him worrying that he's pushed me over the edge into Crazyville than actual remorse. 

So, feeling like I had done my alpha dog duty, I opened the door and left the room while continuing to give LouDog mean looks.  And he did kind of slink out the room.  I went back to making dinner while feeling pretty satisfied that I had put him in his place. 

At which point he jumped up on the counter, stole a chunk of bread, and ran off. 

I may need to re-think my discipline strategies.