Taggie and Pepper…

Wednesday, October 19th, 2005 at 8:57 am

On Sunday we were invited to Kemsley’s house for a dinner. Graeme made traditional British Sunday meal for us which were roasted chicken, roasted potatoes, some boiling vegetables, mashed carrots, gravy and bread sauce. I’ve never had bread sauce before and so has HG. It did not have much taste and I think I can live without it. The meal was so good. Graeme’s roasted potatoes were excellent. It has some nice smell which I quite like it. When we were over there we let both Taggie and Pepper play together. Taggie did not want to be near Pepper at all. She growled, snapped and ran away when Pepper tried to be near her. She barked a lot and drove Graeme crazy. He had to come out from the kitchen to tell her to stop barking.

On Monday Charlotte and her family went away for a week holiday somewhere in the north of Scotland. They left Taggie with us. I don’t think Taggie would have a good time being around our black horrible thing. After Charlotte left, Taggie was at the porch and did not want to come to the dinning room where Pepper and I were, so I put her basket in the porch for her to lie down. She was happy to be in the porch almost all day. I took Pepper there to see her for couple times but she still growled and not happy to see him. She is a dog who normally needs a company but being around our black horror thing she would rather be alone. In the afternoon when Pepper went to sleep in his crate I took Taggie out for a little walk to stretch her legs and to do her business. We could not go far because I did not want to leave Pepper in the crate too long. Once HG came home he took Taggie out for a long walk. I fed her one portion of her food in the porch and she could finish it. At night we put her basket at the landing in front of the bedroom. When the light’s out, she came into the bedroom so we moved her basket to the bedroom beside my bed.

Pepper learned a new trick on Monday. I thought I would not be able to train him anything while Taggie’s here. He learned to STAY on command. At first I put him in his crate with the door open and said STAY and stepped backward and kept saying STAY and stepped backward. He did not move at all, and then I called him to come to me and clicked and gave him treat. We tried this for about 2-3 times in his crate then tried outside the crate and he could do it. Yeah!! That’s my boy. When HG came home I told him about this and he could do it with HG as well. We were very impress with our black horror thing so far.

On Tuesday I felt bad to leave Taggie alone by herself even if she preferred. I thought I could not stop Taggie for being over defensive, so I should stop my Pepper not to bother her. I decided to put them both together in the dinning room. Pepper had his crate and Taggie had her basket. I tried to teach Pepper not to bother Taggie by whenever he was near Taggie and made her growled he would be put in his crate. I did that about 10 times, he seemed to get the message. He would play with Taggie’s toys near her basket but did not try to intrude her privacy. He could do that for a while, I did not know if it was because that corner where I put Taggie’s basket was his favorite corner or he wanted to be in her basket or he liked to play with her. Because when Taggie was not in her basket, he would get in and lie down in her basket. I did not think I was success about teaching him not to bother her. Huh!!!…