#Furkid Friday: "Joshua Started It; The Human Caretakers Finished It!" (FD)

Hi everyone. This is Mollie the chinchilla.

So... The little white Lilie dog started paying a bit more attention to us.

This is probably because of my degu brother, Joshua. He decided it would be fun to throw things - poop mainly, but also bits of hay and nibbles sometimes too - through his cage bars at the Lilie dog. Why he'd want to waste hay and other nibbles in this way is a mystery to me, but whatever! At least he has the sense not to waste cereal like this.

Anyway, at first the Lilie dog just ignored Joshua, and then she decided he was trying to play with her, so she started barking at him. It doesn't bother him though. He just gives her his best, "I'm up here, you're down there... What are you going to do about it?" look. Then, when he gets bored, just turns his back on her and pretends she doesn't exist. He's really good at it too. Pretending she doesn't exist, I mean.

Of course, because Joshua was doing that, the Lilie dog came to ask Maizie and me to play with her too. She doesn't seem to understand that we chinchillas are not interested. We don't want to play with a dog - not even a really small one like she is - and don't really like it when she barks at us.

Luckily for us, the human caretakers seem to understand that we don't like it. They use angry words to her when she comes and barks at us, and - if she doesn't stop when they use the angry words - they give something called "time out" to her. To tell you the truth, I'm not too sure what a "time out" is, but it seems to involve them taking her out of the room we're in for a while, and closing the gate - which is kept closed when the human caretakers aren't able to watch her anyhow, so she can't be in with us by herself. By the time she comes back in the room after this time out thing, she's completely forgotten she was trying to play with us, so goes to play with her toys or something, leaving us in peace.

I have to admit, we kind of like when that happens, especially since the Mummy human always comes to see us while the Lilie dog is having the time out thing. We get petted, the chance for some cuddle time - if we want it - and sometimes even an extra nibble. Like I said, we like when that happens. But it's her having the time out thing we like, not the bit that comes before it. That part is way too noisy!

Despite the fact we get extra attention because of it, we do wish she'd stop yelling at us to come play with her, and are glad the human caretakers appear to understand that we feel that way, and seem to be trying to make her stop it. She is getting better at listening when the human caretakers use the angry words to her to make her stop - especially if it's the Daddy human using those words, since she seems to listen to him best - so I guess that's a good sign. It would be even better if she didn't do it to start with though.

The other thing the human caretakers did was to move things around so she can't reach us. You see, our pen was between our cage and the Mummy human's favourite chair, and the Lilie dog figured out that she could climb on the chair, run across the top of the pen, and be at the same level as us that way. So she'd do that and then bark at us. We really hated it. So the human caretakers moved things around so the Lilie dog doesn't have any way to get on top of our pen any more, and now she can't reach us. She still tries to get away with barking at us from time to time, but we feel a bit safer how things are now, so it's easier to ignore her.

Still... I love my degu brother, Joshua. But I really wish he hadn't started her doing this. Boys!

Squeak soon,
Mollie