Stella Quirks-10/6/14

Stella's most recent quirk is here!

In our recent training of Stella we are trying a new approach to break her of her sassy ways and making major headway. So, when she is barking at us or constantly we have tried a different approach from the original, simple, normal "NO" since she will only bark more AT us when the word "no" is used, we have started putting our pointer finger up to our lips and making the sound Shhhh. It WORKED! As for when she is doing something wrong, if we say no, she will bark at us so as suggested by a friend, we started saying "Stop". This has been working amazingly! 

Now, for her quirk. Last night as my husband and I are eating dinner, Case was sleeping under the table at dad's feet for his belly rub by dad's feet while Stella laid in the living room chewing happily on her bone. I happened to look over at her and noticed her chewing on a sleeping bag zipper instead of her bone. Sternly I scolded her with a "Stellaaaa," causing her to stop chewing and with it still in her mouth, look at me. I continued with a "No Chew," and she spit it out and went back to chewing on her bone while intently watching me. Not even a full five minutes later, I look over to find her chewing on the zipper AGAIN. Now this is nothing new with Stella, it can be a battle of the wits with her all night as she loves to test us, and I do mean LOVES. So I say again sternly, "Stellaaa." She lifts her head quickly looking my direction with the zipper still in her mouth.I proceeded with something someone else had mentioned trying, talking to her like she was a toddler. So I proceeded with asking her, "Is that for puppies, Stella?" and to my absolute dismay she spit it out and laid her nose on her bone with a heavy sigh that seemed as if she were answering no this is for puppies. I told her good girl and she began chewing on her bone again. Periodically I would glance over to see if she was chewing on the zipper again and she was still content with her bone. Usually Stella will continue to chew what ever it is you tell her not to continually until you take it and move it, but not this time. This time she listened and is showing us exactly how smart she really is in all of this. 

We claim to be training her but, in all honesty, she is training us.

I hope you got a good laugh from this Stella quirk!