Passive Agressiveness

Of all the members of this family who is having a hardest time with the new baby...it's Goldie. For those unfamiliar, Goldie is our 5 year old cocker spaniel. She was the first princess of this home. When Joshua came home 17 months ago, we experienced some transitional issues. But once Goldie realized that Joshua is someone who could feed her things, she became much more tolerant and accepting of Joshua.

Now that Abigail is here, we're sort of going through the whole process again. Although now, there's another princess in this home and Goldie needs to share the duties. And Joshua and Goldie aren't necessarily best of friends either. He still taunts her a lot and they both have a lot to learn about sharing.

So, what's this all got to do with passive agressiveness? One of Goldie's ways of dealing with this seems to be with her output, both liquid and solid...and it's not being done outside where it's supposed to. We've tried to be good about making sure she gets plenty of opportunities to do her thing throughout the day. But sometimes it's just not possible to do that when you're taking care of two needy children. Not only that, but she's gotten more bold about it. Normally, she'll take out this agression while we're out somewhere. When we come back, we notice a present at the garage door or near the front door. Those have been her two favorite spots.

So, a few days ago, I'm sitting at the computer and Danielle is upstairs. Out of nowhere, Goldie does #1 in the living room just a few feet away from me. I didn't even notice since I wasn't looking that way and Danielle came down and saw it. And it's not like Goldie makes any noise when she does it.

Then a day or so ago, we're sitting down for dinner. Recently, Goldie's gotten a little more "skittish" when there's food around. So, for our own sanity, we keep her behind the gate we use to keep Joshua from getting to the stairs. She whines a lot, but ultimately gets over it. This time, however, I could hear her go upstairs (her collar has tags that make a clinging noise) which rarely happens while we're eating. I actually had the weird thought that she was going upstairs to do some business, but figured she wouldn't. Sure enough, later on, when we're taking Joshua upstairs to get ready for bed, there's three small logs in front of the kid's bedroom door and another larger log right in front of Joshua's crib! You can't tell me that wasn't done on purpose.