When Sadie’s in a bad mood and wants you to stay away, or when she has a treat and she’s afraid you’ll take it from her, my little pup has a predictable pattern of behavior. In the following photos, you can see the typical steps of a Sadie temper tantrum from start to finish.

It begins with “the look”.  Sadie gets a certain look in her eyes that clearly says “stay away”.

If you ignore “the look” and approach Sadie anyway, she begins to growl quietly, showing her teeth a little.

If you still persist and reach out towards her, she snaps. She doesn’t actually bite or even try to grab you, she just tries to snap in your direction to scare you away.

The final stage of the temper tantrum is guilt. Sadie immediately feels sorry for snapping and tries to lick you. It’s hard to be stern and reprimand my little pup for snapping when she insists on licking your face and apologizing.

This post is part of the Thoughtless Thursday blog hop hosted by Ruckus the Eskie, Love Is Being Owned By a Husky, and M.K. Clinton.

This post is also part of the Thursday Barks and Bytes blog hop hosted by 2 Brown Dawgs and Heart Like A Dog.

On this Black & White Sunday, just a few short days before Halloween, I’ve got a picture for you of Sadie showing off her pearly white teeth. Something about this photo reminds me of old sci-fi/horror werewolf movies. She looks like the evil werewolf, standing on its hind legs, either about to attack or about to sneeze. I don’t know whether to be horrified or laugh.

This post is part of Nola and Sugar‘s Black and White Sunday blog hop.

Here is Sadie demonstrating her favorite position for chewing on her toy bones. It never fails to make me laugh when she rolls over and starts chewing. When I think about, I guess it’s pretty smart to lay in that position. She’s basically using gravity to help push the toy further into her mouth, so that she can satisfy her urge to chew with her back teeth.

This post is part of the BlogPaws Wordless Wednesday Blog Hop.

Yesterday I was seeing a lot of these pearly whites, but unfortunately it was not in the happy, smiling Sadie way. I was out most of yesterday afternoon at a dog and cat adoption charity event. I wish I could have taken Sadie, but she would have been terrified of the huge crowd, and I would have spent the whole time worrying about her. I knew Sadie would have a better time at home hanging out with her Grandparents and playing with her Uncle, who is visiting from out of town this weekend. At one point I spoke to my family, who said Sadie was happily running around and playing and chasing her toys.

When I got home everything seemed normal. Sadie greeted me excitedly at the door, then investigated the goodie bag I brought home from the event. And that’s when everything went downhill. Sadie had her head in the large bag I brought home, sniffing through all the goodies. I put my hand in the bag to start taking the items out and Sadie suddenly began growling at me. I took everything out of the bag and couldn’t figure out what item could have possibly triggered her behavior. There were some poop bags,  a tennis ball, a t-shirt, a towel, and a sampling of various types of dog food. She seemed interested in one particular package of food, so I let her try it. She didn’t growl when I took the food away, but she growled if I tried to touch her. Five hours later, as I’m writing this, Sadie is still in a terrible mood. Every time anyone goes near her, she bears her teeth and starts growling. When I got out of the shower, Sadie came running up to me wagging her tail all excited and happy, and I thought she had finally snapped out of her mood. But after I dried off and got dressed, I went over to pet Sadie, and out came the teeth again.

So now I’m trying to figure out what put her in such a mood. Is she mad because I left her for a few hours? But there were three other people in the house to keep her company, so it’s not like she was alone. Was there something in that bag that triggered some kind of aggressive state? Could she be jealous because she smells the other dogs and cats on me and my clothing?

**Update** – After a two hour nap Sadie is back to her loveable self. Maybe she was just feeling overtired and overstimulated. But when that happens, usually on holidays, Sadie immediately goes for a nap. She doesn’t normally hang around for five hours acting cranky. And I still think it’s weird her bad mood set in as soon as I came home…

This post is part of Nola and Sugar‘s Black and White Sunday blog hop.