Out Of Routine or Feeling Left Out?

There isn't anything in this big wide world that Brutus loves more (OK, disclaimer here, dried liver does come first) other than his Dad. He can't wait for Don to get to the lake on the weekends. It always means more walks, usually fishing, and definitely playing catch with toys in the lake. But last night, for some reason that we can't figure out, Don was on Brutus's naughty list.

He was fine during the day, and we even went fishing and had a great time, but then we had to come home. It had started to rain, and it was really hot outside. Brutus has been doing some "nervous" licking this past week, and has gotten what they call "hot spots" on his legs. They are raw red areas that apparently itch, and he licks and licks and licks them. They can be from bugs, but I think we have that area pretty well covered, or allergies, but we haven't made any changes there, so we have narrowed it down to his nervousness. We know that he hates to be left alone, and we were gone a few times the past couple weeks with company, and he probably started licking then, and it has just continued. Anyway......

When we got home, I brought him in for a nice luke warm bath with some oatmeal shampoo to try to cleanse his hot spots. Unfortunately, about the same time I was marching him down the hall to the bath tub, Don was heading down the stairs to go fishing again. Brutus turned on his heels and headed right after him, but Don said "No", and you can imagine how happy that made Brutus. Not only did he NOT get to go fishing with Dad, but he had to have a bath and get his ears cleaned too. Big Bummer in Brutus land.

I wanted to keep him in the house after his bath, and a sure way to do that is to have him "help" me make the bed. He loves to get all tangled up in the sheets, and this time when he did it, he fell asleep. When he woke up, Dad was back, and putting his dry collar on him. For some reason Brutus jumped up and gave Don a head-butt, jumped off the bed and ran around the house like some kind of crazy horse. He was really upset. Don let him outside, and the first thing he did was grab his bed and start humping it like he was going to show it who was boss. This was ridiculous. We let him sit out there and have his little temper tantrum while I finished making dinner. By then he was knocking on the door. He was really good all through dinner, and just sat on the floor by us, so Don took his plate with a little piece of steak over to where Brutus normally eats, and let him have a bite since he had been so good, and to try to make peace. Brutus ate it, walked over and right in front of us peed on the love seat!! What the hell??? I couldn't believe it. We grabbed him and said "NO" and put him right outside while I cleaned up the mess.

I am no dog professional here, hence the blog, but I figure we have two choices. We can continue to be all pissy with him for something he probably doesn't remember doing, or try to calm him down and calm whatever is troubling him. I pick number two. From everything I have read, staying mad at a dog is a huge waste of time and energy. When I had finished the dishes I brought him in to the bed with me to snuggle, and no sooner had he hit the bed then he was out for the night. I will never know what caused his grumpy behavior. Don has been here for the last week and a half on vacation. Is Brutus out of routine, or was he upset that he got left out of fishing. Or......most likely......am I reading too much into this.

If Brutus could be Don's shadow he would, he would just need to be able to give it kisses. :)