Why My Puppy is a Jerk

To understand this post, you must first be aware of one of the fundamental aspects of Sydney, our big-sister dog:

Sydney is socially retarded.

Being a dog must be a very hard thing for Sydney, because one of the essential parts of being a dog is communicating with other dogs. And Sydney simply does not know how to communicate like a normal dog. Her first instinct when introduced to a new "friend" is to attack it. If this "friend" immediately cowers in submission, Sydney is OK with it. If she gets to know it, she might even want to play with it. But that's the furthest step that is taken in the friendship; because Sydney might WANT to play with a new dog, but she doesn't know how.

So one of Sydney's only joys in her poor, anxiety-ridden life is to play with her humans, and if she's in a REALLY good mood (which is rare), she might just find a super fun toy and play by herself.

So we thought to ourselves, "Maybe if we get a puppy, it will teach Sydney the ways of her kind!" And ya know what? He sort of has. But not completely. And especially not with the whole "playing with other dogs" thing.

And another thing about Sydney: she is very non-confrontational by nature (more on this subject later...).

So poor Sydney, despite her best efforts, is now condemned to a play-less, joy-less life, because when she does get the urge to play, this usually happens:

Dux immediately senses a shift in the atmosphere. Action must be taken to amend this imbalance in nature.

After shamelessly stealing Sydney's beloved object of joy, he continues to demonstrate just how much joy that toy can really possess.

This is probably all just Duxy's elaborate attempt at enticing Sydney to play with HIM, but he just comes across as a jerk because Sydney pitifully reacts like this: