Lupe and Matt-Matt's House Rules

Hi there,
We are Lupe and Matt-Matt and we live with La Trenda. I'm Lupe the Alpha Dog on the right and I'm Matt-Matt, the beta dog on the left. In this picture, we are sitting by the door waiting to go for a ride. That's one of Mom's rules. We have to sit quietly by the door while she puts all these contraptions on us before we go anywhere. Then, get this; she attaches us to each other! Like we are on some sort of chain gang or something. I guess it's worth it though. Nothin' like a ride in the car!

Mom has all sorts of silly little rules like this. The craziest one is that she wants us to pee outside instead of on the bed! I know, right?!

Anyway, we have some of our own rules. If we didn't come up with some, we wouldn't be able to keep Mom in line:

Lupe and Matt-Matt's House Rules

Rule 1. Mom is allowed to work in the office on the computer for no longer than an hour or two at a time. If she goes past this time, we begin a campaign of harassment until she gets off:

• First, we just start staring at her. If this gentle guilt trip doesn't do the trick then
• We paw her or paw the back of her chair. If that doesn't work, our next step is to
• Bring toys to her. That usually does the trick. Sometimes though, she doesn't get up, she just throws the toy. We go get it to show it to her again and (get this) she throws it again. Who does she think she is? When she does the lazy thing with our toys, it's time to bring out the big guns. Lupe the Alpha dog has to step in and do this one. She:
• Brings in an unauthorized item. What is an unauthorized item, you say? It's anything that is easily portable that has not been designated as a fuzzy child toy. Lupe's favorite unauthorized item to show Mom is one of Mom's scrunchees. But a plastic spoon also works well. Then Mom has to get up to take the unauthorized item away.

Rule 2. If Mom decides to relax in the living room on the sofa, that is fine. She can even have a few hours to read a book. But not too long though, because it's hard to turn book pages and pet us at the same time. That's why we encourage television watching instead of book reading. Sure, she has to stop petting us for a few seconds to use the remote but that is acceptable.

Rule 2a. Another sofa rule we have is that Mom is not allowed to doze off while sitting on the sofa. Consequences are a serious pawing.

Rule 3. Going to bed in the bedroom is acceptable for 8 to 9 hours a night. At some point, though she has to get up and take us for a walk. Matt-Matt is particularly effective in this area. He likes to walk right on top of Mom's full bladder. Once she gets up, she is not allowed to get back into bed.

Rule 4. Kitchen Rule: If Mom goes into the kitchen for anything, she has to give us something. A small hypoallergenic dog treat, a carrot, a couple of chickpeas. Doesn't really matter.

Yep, rules maintain order in our household. It keeps Mom from getting too big for her britches.

We have one last guilt trip that we'd like to share. Don't spread this around; let's just keep this between us because it's really really good:

Sometime we like to make Mom feel really bad when she decides to go somewhere without taking us. We can tell she is getting ready to leave us - she checks all the door locks, she closes up the doggie door etc.. If we want to be extra mean, we like to play dumb. We start acting as if we misread the clues and assume that her getting ready to leave is the same as her getting ready to take us somewhere - even though we don't see leashes or anything.
We start bouncing around, doing a happy dance. We might even run to the door and sit real nice. It's fun to make Mom late for her appointments!

What are some ways you keep your parents in line?

See more pics and vids of us at our blog at http://lupematt.blogspot.com

See Mom's main webpage at http://latrenda.blogspot.com/
Our foster brother's website is here: http://rrc.petfinder.com/
Join us on our next dog walking adventure: http://www.meetup.com/dogwalking