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Congrats on your peas! They are such fun birds: tons of personality, and smarter than they let on. I notice that the one on the right appears to be a “split”: he carries one gene for wildtype blue and one for white. Blue is dominant to white, so it masks it almost completely. We never knew that all three of our peas were splits until they hatched out chicks, and we had two blue and four white!
Ah Shandi, that guy’s fabulous. The way you blended the wings into the body worked really well; much better than Breyer did with their Merlin “dragon horse”. The colors are marvellous. That particular mold has its little quirks, but here you’ve either made them work for you, or given them a gentle cosmetic touch (i.e., how you handled the shape of the muzzle by bringing the forelock down just a little further). This horse looks like he always intended to have bat wings and spikes! Beautiful job! 😀
They look ugly. 😛
Dull gray, then, like the pewter dragon/fantasy miniatures they sell at the fair? (Not that I don’t have some of those myself! 😉
You’re very welcome! 🙂 And you’re right: it’s safer for everyone for Louis to stay with you right now. That way the ex can’t holler about “continuing child endangerment”, Louis is living where he can’t make that mistake again, and he’s also safe from animal control, who are also caught in the middle of all this.
I think a lot of people get very upset when someone is bitten in the face: our faces are very personal to us, and of course there’s a social stigma against facial scarring (in our culture anyway). Dogs don’t realize that. One of their primary methods of putting a subordinate in his place is to nip him on the lip or ear. It’s a painful nip, but not a savage tearing bite. To the receiving dog, it’s like a slap on the wrist with a ruler: OUCH, but no lasting damage. Humans, however, do not bite each other in the face. (Well, not commonly; all bets are off in a rowdy preschool.) So face-biting by an animal triggers a violent reaction of fear and offense. Another one of those really unfortunate language barrier things.
I am hoping very much that everything works out OK, and I think you and Marou are handling it well. Obedience lessons for Louis and canine education for the children: that’s a fantastic combination approach. Coming at the problem from two different sides like that is much more likely to reach a resolution. Best of luck!
Griffinlover, marou, I am so sorry to hear about this, and relieved that things seem to be resolving OK. An incident like this is really frightening for everyone involved. I thought it would be important, though, for you to get some input from a canine behavior POV.
Marou, what you said about needing to remind Louis that you are the alpha: that was bang on target. What Louis did, in canine terms, was to react to an invasion of his territory by a subordinate member of his pack. That doesn’t mean what he did was OK; but it’s important to know why he did what he did. To Louis, sitting on the couch with his adult humans means he has been shown favor. In his view, having a junior pack member come up and hug him is very offensive in general, and it may have been made worse by the fact that he was on the couch. Dogs will be protective of what they value: food, toys, bed, couch, and especially their human leaders. You and Griffinlover are the most important things in Louis’s world. Having another pack member approach him while he is sitting beside you is highly annoying to him, and he’s much more likely to snap.
This DOES NOT excuse what he did; please know that I am not blaming your daughter! She didn’t know Louis would react to what was, to her, a perfectly lovely gesture of affection. The thing is, there’s this really big language barrier between dogs and humans. We feel that because they’re smart enough to understand some words, that they also understand our social setup. But they don’t. With dogs, pack is everything, and every pack has a pecking order. If a low-ranking dog gets too close to a high-ranking dog, the high-ranking dog will act to put the low-ranker in his place. If the low-ranker seems like he’s going to take something the high-ranker considers his own, the high-ranker will again react. They’re just wired that way, and it can lead to serious misunderstandings.
Your best defense for your children is just what you’re doing: telling them not to give Louis snuggles. But in addition to that, your other action of reminding Louis who’s the alpha here is also super, super important. Ideally, a dog ranks below every human in the household: that way he understands that he’s not to snap at anyone. But this can be hard to achieve if a dog wasn’t raised in that household. Right now Louis thinks he ranks above the children, and it’s going to be difficult to convince him otherwise. You’ll have to take some extra steps.
First, watch Louis very closely when the children are around. If he starts staring at a child very hard, get his attention back on you: this will interrupt his train of thought, and get it back on you. If he freezes when a child approaches, that’s a danger sign. We don’t want Louis to “guard” you from the children (trying to hog you all for himself). We don’t want Louis to guard the couch from the children (blocking them from that place of favor). It may be necessary to establish a time-out for Louis if he’s guarding.
The other ways to protect the children are to reinforce your own leadership, and introduce leadership acts for the children. This is a great time for you to give Louis a brush-up on his obedience. Sit, stay, lie down are all great. So is “Wait!”: Make him sit before he goes through a door, and you always go through a door before he does. Make him sit for his food. When he’s getting good about that, have the children give him the sit command for his food, then give him his food. If he jumps up and tries to grab the food, go back to square one for a week, and try again. Likewise, once he’s good about sitting and waiting before he goes through a door, teach the kids how to do this with him. These things will help reinforce to Louis a safer pecking order.
This stuff is only a starting point, but I hope it helps. I really wanted you to know what was going on from Louis’s point of view, because it can be so hard on a family when a beloved pet starts acting out against children. A licensed dog behavioralist might be helpful to you, and certainly the Dog Whisperer does have some good ideas and some useful techniques. Best of luck!
Gotta add “The Incredibles” to the list …and is it just me or does “E” (Edna Mode) remind anyone of “Hetty Lange” from NCIS LA?
twindragonsmum 🙂
Heck yeah! :bigsmile: Edna and Hetty steal center stage in their respective storylines, IMO. They’re hilarious!
. . . Although in high school I learned from personal experience that diminutive women with killer fashion sense and glasses are SERIOUSLY not to be messed with . . . . 😉
ReBoot! Whee–can’t wait to see what you do with that one! 😀 Did you choose a character in particular, or just take the art style as your inspiration?
Zuberi rocks! I love how he has a warm gleam in all of his golds and the reddish-brown tint that you gave him in places. And that has to be one of the best treatments of spots that I’ve ever seen. Spots are so danged hard to do on scales . . . . Beautiful fellow! 🙂
Oh, he’s a fine one! Those hackles, and the transition of colors . . . lovely! I really like how you did the tail and the wings also. 🙂
Well, I have succumbed to temptation again . . . Purpleturtle’s Yenru. When he listed the first time, I thought, “Huh, he’s gorgeous. He’ll shoot the moon for sure.” Then he re-listed, and I thought, “I really can’t spend the money right now.” And then he listed yet again, and I thought, “Okay, you can’t expect this to keep happening. Either bid, you fool, or admit that dropping a watermelon on your foot would be more pleasant than missing out on this wolf.”
I’ve been wanting to get my hands on one of Purpleturtle’s marvellous PYOs from day one, and just haven’t had the luck in the bidding. But this time, this time it worked! 😀
Cute little Melon! He has such a wonderful combination of colors. Although now you’ve got me drooling–he reminds me of those yummy melon hard candies that they have at Mitsuwa. Same shade of green, and SO tasty! :p
I’ll be at Comic-Con in San Diego this year! It’s getting harder to get tickets for that thing, though: they’re selling out earlier and earlier in the year. If folks want to attend for 2012, I’d recommend bookmarking their website and buying tickets the minute they’re available.
They had the worst time with the on-line ticket sales this year. I sure hope they get the bugs worked out in time for 2012! :~
