January 29, 2016

White Dog came into the living room pushing YoYoMa and Sachi ahead of her. She indicated that they were to sit in front me. Yo immediately sat and hung his head contritely. Sachi started to answer the leader but she repeated her command with more force and a show of teeth. He sat and squirmed.

I looked at White Dog. "They need an intervention before they hurt someone, or get hurt, or before I lock them both in timeout for 11 years," she said in frustration. "Tell me," I asked her.

Sachi began to talk again. Both WD and I looked at him and for once, he was wise enough to fall into silence.

"We were all outside. It is a nice day so some of us were walking around in the yard and checking out the perimeter. Little Napoleon decided to make sport of darting around the yard and nipping at our flanks. For no reason; he just charged up, nipped and was gone. He seemed to think it was funny. Nilla asked him to stop. So did Benson. He was being a total brat. He nipped me and I backed him into the corner and gave him a warning. It did no good because he ran around my side and went right for YoYoMa."

"YoYo had not been a part of what had been going on. He had been sun bathing on the deck and had just gotten up to take care of business. That is when Sachi rushed him and took a nip. Well Yo got mad, lost it in fact, and started chasing Sachi around. Sachi thought it was a fun game and circled around and nipped again."

"Well that was a bad decision because YoYoMa was able to grab him by his neck and push him to the ground. I ran right over to break things up but Sachi was screaming mean taunts and Yo just stood there with his paw on Sachi's chest swinging his drooling head over the Little Man in a very scary way."

"He would not listen to reason and I do not really blame him but Sachi was starting to panic and choke. I hip checked YoYoMa and the surprise caused him to lift his foot. Then I corralled them both and now here we are."

I looked from one to the other. "Thank you White Dog for being the only one with ANY sense," I told her. "YoYoMa, you are my smart boy, the one I count on to THINK..." He bent forward to lick my hand. "I know, momma, I lost my cool and let myself get rattled by his meanness. He deserved a thrashing but I should have been wiser." "Yo, you are the biggest in the family, and despite Zsofia's youth, you are the strongest. You MUST remember that you could seriously injure the others if you use brawn instead of brains. Even when you are mad."

Sachi was doing his best to upstage his brother and look adorable. "And YOU LITTLE MAN! You have a mean streak that is not very nice. It is not playful to nip, especially when you are asked to stop. Zsofia and Pearl love to wrestle but not everypup does. I want you to go to your bed and think about the difference between play and brattiness. It is NOT cute. It is NOT funny. And I want you to think of how you are going to apologize.

"What about Yo?" Sachi asked. "His punishment is knowing that he could have done better and that he let me down. Believe me, your brother will find thinking about THAT just as harsh as you being sent to bed."