Bark bark bark

Sorry for the lack of updates here, I've been busy and not creative enough to write much, but we are still around :)

Philip has been a difficult teenager rebel lately, and has been pressing all boundaries imaginable. His latest thing is barking, and testing how much of it is allowed. In general, I have very little tolerance for mindless barking and have enforced that since the first day Philip came to live with me. He knows full well that barking is largely unacceptable except for legit cases, for example when someone is at the door. Of course, he still wants to vocalize a lot more than just that (Corgis are notorious to be vocal really), so as compromise he does little muffled woofs when he wants to voice his opinion at something outside. I realize that I can't make him totally quiet, so to be fair I allow little woofs so long as they are quiet enough and don't last too long.

So Philip's latest thing has been to really test my limit on the woof-allowance. When he gets into the alert mode, he'll run up to the window and let out a small woof. He will then immediately look at me to check my reaction. If I'm not looking back at him (but I can see him looking out of the corner of my eye), he's immediately turn back and let out another, slightly louder woof, then look at me again. He'll continue this until I start looking back at him. If I'm looking back, he'll sit and analyze it for a moment - am I just looking, or am I about to tell him to stop it? After a slight pause, if my reaction has unchanged, he'll again raise up the woofing a bit and look back at me. This continues until I finally react with some sort of command to put a stop to it. Usually it's just a calm "That's enough, no bark". It works for a while, but soon enough he's back at it, starting slightly softer again. He can continue this game the whole evening if I let him.

He keeps raising his pitch until I finally say something, then goes back down in volume and the cycle repeats. With each repeated cycle, I get more irritated and use harsher voice for commands, or make him lay down away from the window. He knows it irritates me, he must know it, but he keeps testing the waters and keeps pushing the buttons. Sometimes I just want to strangle him! But of course I would never hurt him, so I'll just keep persisting, and hope that one day he'll stop pushing the issue. Sigh...

So that's a little peek into out latest shenanigans. Oh yeah, be on the lookout for a post soon enough that'll give you a chance to participate in some fun gift-giving activities :D That's all I'm saying for now ;)

P.S.: If you want to read up more about Philip, make sure to follow our Agility blog. I do keep that one much more updated, though the content is fairly limited to Agility info.