Thoughtprints

The first thing I want to tell you about today is a cool new PC utility called Stickies. I discovered it over at Tina Silva's Blog earlier when I was blog surfing. If you're like me and forget what you're supposed to be doing all the time, you'll think this is as cool as I do. Virtual sticky notes! No more sticky notes glued all over your monitor - now they'll appear on your desktop when you need to be reminded of something. You can even make them the color you want them to be, and pick the font you like best. You can even email them! It'll be cool when I need to remind my kids or my sisters of something. Anyway, go take a look. :)

Those of you who have read me for a while now know about my pack of dogs, right? For those of you who don't, I (we) have six dogs. If you're owned by more than 2 dogs, you'll know what I'm talking about when I say "dog dynamics" and "pack behavior". One of those behaviors is the act of setting the hierarchy within the pack. Well, up until now it's been pretty set - Riley has always been Alpha dog, primarily because he's the ONLY dog (male), while Alpha bitch has always been Sage, my daughter's Cocker Spaniel. Well, little Miss Pippin decided a while back that SHE wanted to be boss. She thinks she's really tough, don'tcha know. She's very willful, to say the least. LOL So anyway, she's been picking fights with Sage over the last few weeks. Some of them have been kinda' bad, because when they start in, all the other dogs think they need to join in, too! Especially Daisy. From the first moment we brought her home, Daisy has thought of Pippin as "her baby". She really watches out for her. Well anyway, today they got into it again, but only after they had had a pretty bad fight last night. Hubs, being kind of a bonehead, put his hand in the middle of it and had it bitten pretty badly by Sage. She didn't know she was biting him, of course, but it still made him mad. Anyway, when Sage woke up this morning, the first thing she did was look for Pippin. Before Callie and I could do anything, they were at it! This time, however, we pulled the big dogs off, which was VERY difficult (big dogs are STRONG!!) and put them in Callie's bedroom. Then we just let the two of them fight it out. We knew how it would end, and we were exactly right - Sage had Pippin pinned within 5 minutes, and kept her like that for at least 10 minutes. After she walked away, Pippin finally decided to try and leave the area (she had her pinned under the footrest part of my recliner!), but Sage ran back in a heartbeat and told her in no uncertain terms to STAY, which she complied with quite submissively. You really should've seen it. I know you probably think we're weird, but watching pack dynamics at work like that is so interesting! And it HAD to happen. They wouldn't have stopped fighting ever if we had kept pulling them apart. It was almost mandatory that Sage show Pippin exactly who Alpha is! Now everything is peaceful and quiet. Pippin hid in my room for quite a while, probably humiliated and a little scared, but she's out here with the rest of us now. There's no doubt this will have a significant impact on her personality, but quite frankly, she needed it! She had an attitude WAY too big for her own good. LOL Anyway, all is now well in our little doggie kingdom.

And speaking of Hubs, he's off on a train tonight so my daughter, her best friend and I are having a girls night and ordering in Chinese for dinner, watching a couple movies I ordered from Pay Per View (The Return [daughter loves horrors and thrillers] and Running with Scissors) and snackin' on popcorn. I'm really looking forward to it!

My allergies are kicking my ass right now, but I'm not going to let that interfere with our good time. Congestion, sneezing and sore throat be damned!

Ya'll have a great rest of the day!

Pack Behavior, Dogs, Stickies, Movies, The Return, Running with Scissors