Karma thy name is Gracie

[trystinn]

Last week we bought a new dog toy, a faux fleece stuffed elephant, figured Flash would get a kick out of it. The little fuzzy elephant makes a delightful trumpeting noise when you squeeze it or in a dog's case, bite it. For whatever reason, this trumpet scares Flash so badly he'll jump off of furniture and even leave the room to get away from it.

Cue Gracie. Her little border collie brain just figured out the above and she's been gnashing down on the elephant all evening. Flash has been jumping sideways and slinking away from his demented sister, giving us guilt-inducing reproachful looks ever since.

The power dynamic of the pack just slid sideways.

Comments

[kajiracad.livejournal.com]

My (now 2yr old) cat MA came into this world a sedate and calm cat, undisturbed by anything (except the vacuum cleaner, which we call Darth Vader for the awful noises it makes). Then, a "friend" gave Tom a mini-laser pointer for his birthday last summer. It took maybe 10min for the man to realize that the cat(s) would chase after that little red dot. He "tormented" them off and on for days with it. He was not really trying to be mean, but he loved watching them stop and twist-about looking for it when he suddenly turned off the pointer.

Since then poor MA has been edgy and jumpy and super nervous. Loud noises don't bother her but whereas before the pointer we could walk up to her and give her a love-rub if she was curled up somewhere snoozing, now if we do that she jumps up and goes "Halloween" on us and looks seriously not happy. She's even gotten startled by us just lifting her from our laps. I blame Tom and the Evil Pointer for this personality shift, because she only became skiddish after the pointer play. To his credit he truly feels bad about it, so much so that I haven't seen the pointer in months.

[wild-heart.livejournal.com]

What stuns me is that you've willingly endured an entire evening of the noise.

[tryst-inn.livejournal.com]

I can put up with quite a lot when I'm baking in the kitchen (more beer butter bread) and only aware in snippets. :)

Besides, hubby is in a Red Dwarf marathon - I can barely hear my own thoughts those nights.