Just recently I bought this ball for Gwen that lights up. The ball itself is clear with another ball on the inside that when it shakes, bounces, or otherwise gets jostled, it lights up! I bought the blue one after work one day and then a few days later I decided I’d get the green one too! The were on clearance at our store for $4, originally priced for 9 or 10 bucks I think, but with my employee discount it was only a couple bucks, hence the second purchase. At first I wasn’t sure if Gwen would like this toy or not but I figured it would keep me entertained for awhile anyways. I was excited to show it to Andrew and so we threw it around for a little while and that, of course, made Gwen want it for herself. So we started to throw it for her and she loved it! I don’t know why she did, but she did! It was hilarious to watch her standing there with blue and red lights blinking/shining out of her mouth. I wish I could get a picture but sadly I couldn’t get a good one, she just wanted to play!
I also bought her another toy that was also on clearance for $4, great deal considering it had originally been twenty-something dollars! It was a little dog house with little squeaker doggies inside it that she was supposed to pull out and play with. She shook it to death until the doggies were flung out of the holes. All week she has been killing those little doggies, slowly ripping of ears, noses and what minimal stuffing they had inside them. I don’t like to encourage the destruction of her soft toys but it is difficult to do. We take away her toys when she starts mutilating them and give them back to her later, so far it has made them (minus the squeakers) last a little longer. We have now become a stuffingless house since I/we have gotten so tired of picking up stuffed animal guts.
We have been working on Snapper’s snappiness when taking treats and also her extreme protectiveness of her high-value treats (bully sticks & rawhides). She has started to get really snappy and growly when you go to take them away. She got my hand once but didn’t draw any blood. We’d been doing the spray bottle thing, spraying her when she’d snap or snarl, and all that did was piss her off more. So I decided to seek professional help. I asked one of our dog trainers at work what I could do about Gwen, explaining what she did and when (only with bullys or rawhides) and told her how we weren’t getting anywhere. What she told me was to get some tasty treats and work on drop-it & leave-it with her. Duh! Why didn’t I think of that?! Such a simple answer/solution to the problem! I think I didn’t think of that because it was funny to watch her snarl and watch her get pissed off for getting sprayed in the face. Oh, and Miss Snarly Gremlin would open her mouth for the water! She figured out when you trigger, the thing would be shooting out water! Last night she was PERFECT! No snarling, no snapping, I could throw the bully stick and tell her to wait, put it in front of her, tell her to leave-it, and drop-it! Sometimes you just need an outsider’s view or advice to solve a problem. Please refer to the Einstein quote….
All said and done Gwen is a great little dog and would never hurt anyone on purpose unless that person was trying to hurt her hoomans. She is very protective of us. Nobody can hug anyone with her around because she will bark her little head off if you try. Apparently hugging is seen as aggression and she will not tolerate it. So long as we have cookies in hand we should not have to deal with the ugly snarl monster for awhile, and hopefully in the future we will be able to tell her to drop it (the bully stick) and not have any back sass or snarls! I can see it as a real possibility.
Gwendolyn Rose 