Little Miss Sensitivity

I have been aware for quite some time that Abby has a tender heart. She doesn't like to see anyone upset. There were many times when she was younger that when a baby started crying, she would join in the wailing. Now she just offers to go get them some medicine so that they can be "all better now". Sometimes, when I'm playing around with her I will feign sadness and she quickly will tell me that we are all done. She doesn't like to see someone sad.

Lately though she has been really, really sensitive. For example, this afternoon the FedEx man stopped by the house to drop off a package. Now, usually I will just let them leave it on the porch and get it once they've left. See, Bruiser tends to get a bit jumpy when it comes to strangers coming to the house, especially when Jason isn't home. He is in full protection mode and this can cause a bit of stress in the poor guys that swing by to drop packages off. There was even one time when the UPS man asked to give him a running start before I opened the door. Although Bruiser lets Abby do whatever she wants to him, when it comes to strangers he is pretty fierce. This afternoon, as usual, Bruiser started the loud barking that lets us know that someone is near. I didn't have much patience with him, and the third time he wouldn't stop barking, after I asked nicely, I may have raised my voice a bit. That's when Abby got mad at me and started crying.

Abby "comforts" Bruiser. At this point though
Bruiser was much more interested in the people
walking their dog by our house. 

I made sure that she knew that she wasn't in trouble, that I had just been talking to Bruiser, but it didn't matter. She sat by the door for a few minutes crying (rather pathetically), and wouldn't listen to anything I tried to tell her. She wouldn't let me comfort her, or even touch her. She just wanted to sit and cry. She finally stood up, when Bruiser came to find out what was going on. She put her arm around him and her forehead to his back - and continued to cry. I finally got it out of her that she was mad at me for yelling at Bruiser. I found myself apologizing to Bruiser, just to make her happy - it didn't work. Luckily, Daddy was on his way home, so she didn't keep it up for long.

So, from now on, I will have to be a bit more diplomatic when it comes to correcting the dog, otherwise I'm going to have to deal with his protector.

One of the many Bruiser/Abby Love pictures