Conniving Puppy

Oscar and Cooper are so different. Oscar isn’t sneaky. He goes after whatever he wants – doesn’t matter if I’m watching him or not. Cooper . . sneaky as can be. He keeps his eyes on me when he’s doing something he knows he shouldn’t be doing . . like he thinks if he locks his eyes on me, I can’t see what he’s doing.

They don’t often get to play with toys because Oscar gets aggressive with his. He doesn’t even seem to enjoy playing with them as much as he wants to guard them. Cooper loves to play with the toys but he’d much prefer to steal Oscars . . and live to tell about it.

Today I gave them each two identical toys except different colors and I sat and watched them, with my spray water bottle in my hand. I don’t even have to spray them most of the time . . just shaking the bottle is enough to stop them in their tracks.

Oscar was sitting by my chair guarding his toys. Cooper tried everything he could think of to get Oscar’s toys without me noticing. I couldn’t help but laugh when Cooper went behind a recliner across the room from me, right in plain sight and came out from the side on his belly crawling ever so slowly towards Oscar, with his eyes on me. He thought he was going to crawl on his belly and I wouldn’t notice his little black self crawling across light tan carpet!!

Cooper did play with his toys. Oscar just sat and dared Cooper to come near his – never played with them. They play well with each other . . chasing each other and doing their doggy karate moves but put a toy into the mix and full chaos breaks out.

Oscar has always been that way. If he had a bone or anything and we tried to get it, that was a hard no! We would have to distract him with something else if we wanted to take something he didn’t want us to have.

Cooper will be 2 in July; Oscar will be 4 in December. I’m hoping once Cooper calms down a bit, and he should after he turns 2 or at least after 2-1/2, Oscar will be a bit more calm too. I think Oscar feels like he has to always be ready for a fight with Cooper being such a rascal. Dealing with them is so much better than it was a year ago and I know it will get even easier as they get older.