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Post by Briar on Aug 20, 2020 19:58:42 GMT -6
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Post by Briar on Aug 20, 2020 20:09:58 GMT -6
Aubrey wasn't sure he knew what he had been getting himself into when he adopted one Houluh. The pup in question - whom he had nicknamed Lyra - had seemed manageable. Which was maybe not the best thing to think about a creature you were adopting, but it wasn't so much that he needed her to be perfectly obedient as he had never trained a Houluh in his life, or any kind of dog really. But one puppy ought to be alright, even for him. And Lyra had seemed friendly, at least.
... Maybe he should have paid more attention when he was picking her out though, because as it turned out, the kind of puppy that chose you... had big personalities. It wasn't that she was any worse than other puppies her age, probably - not that Aubrey had a lot of frames of reference for things like that - but she definitely had a bold streak, or maybe an adventurous streak... or maybe a stubborn streak. Maybe it was all three. He didn't know. He hadn't spent a great deal of time with her yet, but it felt as though his entire life had been a whirlwind of trying to keep her out of trouble since he had brought her home.
... But of course things wouldn't end there. Yeo-reum had taken her arrival as a cue that they were now adopting dogs, apparently, and Aubrey came home one day to two more Houluh, sourced from gods knew where, romping around along with Lyra.
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Post by Briar on Aug 20, 2020 20:17:27 GMT -6
Aubrey hadn't had a lot of out of body experiences in his life, but it definitely felt like his soul escaped his body a little bit back then. Especially once he saw what had become of the living room in his absence. Apparently Yeo-reum had seen fit to do some romping around with the pups himself while Aubrey had been away. The pups didn't know any better, of course, but Yeo-reum...
He didn't feel ready for three puppies, not by a long shot. And yet, it wasn't like he could abandon them either... And the two Yeo-reum had brought home were definitely strays. The black one had been only a little dirty, and friendly enough once he realized that Aubrey had treats and didn't want to hurt him. But the other, whose color Aubrey hadn't even been sure of until the next day when he finally cornered the pup into a bath, had clearly been homeless a lot longer. Even now, he kept away from Aubrey, and growled sometimes when Aubrey came near.
It was funny that that, of all things, was what tugged on Aubrey's heartstrings, but...
... And so the whirlwind of keeping one pup out of trouble became the full on hurricane of keeping three pups from tearing the house down, until Aubrey came to the sad and uncomfortable conclusion that he was going to have to take them out somewhere to work off that excess energy. Otherwise there wouldn't be much of a house left to come back to.
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Post by Briar on Aug 20, 2020 20:28:10 GMT -6
It was a thoroughly harried Aubrey who had set out with three pups in tow... Or more like they were towing him, actually. He had gotten leashes on all of them, barely, though the white and brown pup - whose color had been quite the shock under all that dirt and grime, and whom Aubrey had begun calling Loki - fought him every step of the way. Now that he was no longer in Aubrey's immediate vicinity and alongside his friends, he didn't seem quite so ready to chew Aubrey's fingers off, but he was still inclined to sulk, and wasn't playing as much as the other two.
... Yeo-reum had made some motions as if he intended to clean up the place, and he had certainly looked guilty, but Aubrey didn't have much hope. Responsibility was not really a trait he associated with Yeo-reum, even if the Tat did have good intentions.
But it was nice to get away from the mess for a while, and go somewhere where he wouldn't be responsible for cleaning up afterwards if the pups caused a mess. Oh, well, except if they pooped anyway; he wasn't that irresponsible. But they were much less likely to break something in a space that wasn't so enclosed and also so filled with furniture and housewares. No one would mind if they chewed a branch out in the park, right?
Of course, they had to get there first. But before they quite got there, the path they took took them past the Mansion.
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Post by Briar on Aug 20, 2020 20:32:52 GMT -6
... In retrospect that had been a bad idea. If Aubrey had stopped to just think about it for a minute, he would have come to that conclusion on his own. The problem was that he didn't really have the space to think about anything these past few days, and when he went out he had been more or less at his wits' end. Too late, he realized that a place like the Mansion would have way too many interesting sights and smells for a curious pup. Too late, he saw Lyra bolting for it with everything she had. And his grip on the leash hadn't been quite as tight as it probably should have been, though where she found that kind of monstrous brute strength when she was still so small was another question altogether... But long story short, Lyra caught a whiff of something interesting, and tugged herself out of Aubrey's grasp. She went tearing off in the direction of the Mansion gates, and had wiggled her way through the bars before he could catch up to her. He only barely managed to snag the end of her leash before he lost her inside for good.
"Lyra!" he said, half relief and half consternation. But she seemed wholly unrepentant, as he was beginning to learn was her fashion, and her tail wagged gently as if she actually expected to be praised. She certainly had no intention of coming back out, and even now she glanced back and forth between Aubrey and the tide pools in the yard.
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Post by Briar on Aug 20, 2020 20:38:55 GMT -6
The only thing that had kept the other two pups from being dragged along when Aubrey went chasing after her was the fact that they were doing their best to follow hot on her heels. Now they were all keyed up from the short little run, and pacing restlessly around Aubrey as he stood on the outside of the gate, begging Lyra with his eyes to please just be good, this once. But she wasn't in the mood for acquiescing, and in the meantime the black pup - dubbed Joker - was trying to wiggle through after her. Aubrey sighed, picked him up and put him back down, then pushed the gate open himself.
This was a terrible idea. He knew it was. But if Lyra wouldn't come out... Maybe if they had a little adventure in here, she would get it out of her system and that would be the end of that.
And in the meantime, well, it wasn't like he'd ever heard of anyone getting kicked out for their creatures chewing up the Mansion grounds. Though he was going to have to be careful, since the Mansion wasn't an ordinary place, and maybe it wouldn't be healthy for the pups to be eating anything they found here, beyond the usual risk level of a pup with an errant chewing problem.
The pups, at least, seemed to approve of this decision - in that Lyra immediately started trying to pull Aubrey further in, and the other two set off in different directions simultaneously.
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Post by Nadia on Aug 20, 2020 20:43:05 GMT -6
 That shell looks rather lonely. |
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Post by Briar on Aug 29, 2020 16:55:54 GMT -6
"Hey! No!" Aubrey said, more out of surprise than anything - it certainly hadn't crossed his mind as to how he was going to begin to train this lot. But they did stop, even if they seemed a bit surprised that they had done it.
... And 'no' was a command he wanted them to learn, sooner or later.
He knew they hadn't recognized the word, because it wasn't as though he had the time or the energy to introduce them to it thus far. What they were reacting to was probably just the fact that he had raised his voice. Heck, it might have just been Lyra who did; the other two might be taking their cues from her. As he surveyed them, he could see Loki eyeing him more warily, and remembered a little belatedly that Loki didn't seem to trust him much. Or humanoids, in general, maybe. He had been pretty dirty before that first bath.
Still, they had done what he wanted, even if they didn't understand the how and why of it yet. So Aubrey got out some treats, and gave each pup a little morsel. "Good boy, good girl," he said. It was too early for pats, and maybe they didn't understand praise yet either, but they must have understood his tone. Lyra wagged her tail happily, glad for the treat. Joker sniffed cautiously for a moment, then ate his, tail wagging more slowly.
Loki, in what Aubrey was beginning to think of as his characteristic fashion, snatched the treat as if he expected it to be taken away.
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Post by Briar on Aug 29, 2020 17:01:35 GMT -6
"You really don't trust me, do you?" Aubrey said. He kept his voice carefully gentle, but even so, Loki snuck wary glances at him while bolting down the treat. Sighing, Aubrey shook his head. "You really should eat slower. That's not good for your digestion." But it wasn't worth reprimanding him over either. What was it he had read once, somewhere? To keep an animal happy with you, their ratio of experiences with you had to be five to one, good to bad. He couldn't just go nay-saying everything Loki did right off the bat.
Trust took time to build, and he was already starting at a disadvantage with Loki.
Between the three of them though, it wasn't like they left him room to dwell on it for long. Soon enough, Lyra was pulling them all in a different direction. Since there was only the one of her doing it, this time he let it happen, though he knew he would have to correct that later.
But then he realized she was beelining straight for one of the tide pools.
The other two pups seemed to realize it about the same time that he did, and the three of them began surging in the same direction. Aubrey was filled with dread. "No!" he said again as they reached the water's edge, having sensed what was coming. They were planning to jump in, he just knew it.
The sharpness of his voice, once again, brought them to a halt. Thank the gods.
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Post by Briar on Aug 29, 2020 17:51:22 GMT -6
He did feel a little bad, having done this twice in what felt like quick succession. But at least he had spoken to them all gently in between, so hopefully they understood that he wasn't going to be yelling all the time.
And, of course, the treats.
They stopped, which was what he had wanted, so he could give them a treat for that, surely. After all, if they hadn't stopped, he would be dealing with three wet pups right now. It wouldn't be the end of the world, considering they weren't at home or anything, but he didn't have a towel on him, and, well...
As he handed out the treats, Aubrey felt the three of them watching him more attentively this time. Maybe they were trying to puzzle out why they were being rewarded, and what they could do to get more of them. That... was the point of these rewards, wasn't it, to tell them that they were on the right track? That was a nicer way of thinking about it than treating them as bribes.
But either way, if they were paying attention, that was a good thing, right? He heard that these guys could be quite clever. Maybe it started as early as their puppy stage.
No sooner than did Aubrey think this, however, than did Lyra try to approach the pool again. "Lyra, no!" he said. All three of them froze, but in this case Lyra had been the one that Aubrey called, and the relevant offender.
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Post by Briar on Aug 29, 2020 17:57:44 GMT -6
And so Lyra had been the one to get the treat. She licked it from his fingers with evident satisfaction, which made Aubrey a little... Uneasy wasn't the right word, but he could see that she was thinking. And while he hadn't known her for long enough to be able to tell what that look really meant, he felt a sense of foreboding, as if something was about to happen that he didn't feel prepared for.
"Good girl," he said cautiously, though he didn't know if she was really being one at the moment. "Now, let's get away from that pool, alright?" He urged them away from the pool as gently as he could. Lyra resisted more than the other two - Aubrey found that it was surprisingly easy to herd Loki away from something, since that pup didn't want to be near Aubrey very much - but eventually she gave up.
But, as he was finding, it was only because she had set her sights on some new way to misbehave.
Honestly, maybe she should have been the one named 'Loki' after all, for the amount of grief she was starting to cause. At once she began to dig, throwing up a big spray of sand. What was worse, this time one of the other pups got in on it too. "Lyra, Joker, no!" Aubrey said.
All three pups looked up, stopping in their tracks, but again, Aubrey only rewarded the relevant ones - in this case, Lyra and Joker - with treats.
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Post by Briar on Aug 29, 2020 18:02:52 GMT -6
After getting her treat, however, Lyra began pawing slowly at the sand again. "Lyra," Aubrey said warningly, but when she didn't stop, he said, "Lyra, no."
She stopped.
"Good girl," he said, and fed her a treat.
He saw her tail wagging, and she seemed highly satisfied with herself. This was the moment when he realized that she was definitely experimenting. He didn't know if the other two had caught on, though they had obeyed the 'no' every time he had used it, but he was sure in that moment that Lyra had figured out what it meant. The unfortunate thing was that she had also figured out how to get treats out of him for it, and seemed to be pushing at his boundaries as part of the bargain, to see what he would object to and what he wouldn't.
Aubrey's misfortunes were hardly at an end there. Loki, watching this exchange, seemed to have figured out at least some of what Lyra was doing, and the next thing Aubrey knew, he was digging a hole too. "Loki, no," Aubrey said. But unlike Lyra, who stopped what she had been doing in hopes of a treat, Loki kept going. "Loki," Aubrey said, making his voice firmer. "No."
This time Aubrey didn't yell, but he spoke very firmly indeed. He didn't really know where it was coming from, since he wasn't really a firm person by nature. But that, at last, got Loki's attention, and he stopped what he was doing after all.
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Post by Briar on Aug 29, 2020 18:09:23 GMT -6
"Good boy, Loki," Aubrey said, relieved, and held out a treat to the pup. Loki still eyed it with distrust, but took it from Aubrey more readily now, knowing what it was and having had a few treats in this manner already. It heartened Aubrey to see it, and he hoped that in time their relationship would really improve.
But of course, no sooner did he put out one fire than did another one start somewhere else. This time it was Joker - the only one left whom Aubrey believed wasn't deliberately testing Aubrey - who was acting up, by tugging Aubrey sharply in the direction of... something he was chasing. Right, Aubrey remembered belatedly, there were a lot of pocketpets in these parts, weren't there? He'd forgotten about that. It was like taking them to a smorgasbord of squirrels. It really had been a terrible idea to come here.
"Joker, no," Aubrey said. He was too tired now to put real force in his voice, but luckily Joker seemed to recognize the word itself. He'd heard it often enough since they'd come here, even if some of it wasn't directed at him. The pup stopped, and looked at Aubrey, something like a question in his eyes.
"Good boy," Aubrey said, and fed him a treat, hoping this would be enough to answer that question.
Joker seemed happy for the treat. What a straightforward fellow, Aubrey thought. Sighing, he said, "You're the only one who's actually going to behave for me, aren't you?"
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Post by Briar on Aug 29, 2020 18:15:15 GMT -6
Joker looked at him when he spoke, but there was no more comprehension in that gaze. It felt a little strange, perhaps because he was so used to being in the company of Yeo-reum, who knew what he was saying and had real thoughts on it. It wasn't that these pups were witless, but it was also too much to expect human intelligence from them, or real understanding of Common, especially when they hadn't spent much of their lives in human company yet.
Aubrey didn't know why he expected any different, but it was a whirlwind of trouble whether he was in his home or out of it. He spent a lot of that first little while telling this pup or that pup no. After so many little incidents, the pups and Aubrey seemed to come to the first and most basic of understandings: if he said 'no', he wanted them to stop. And if they did, he would give them a treat.
That was progress. At least he had a reliable way to stop them in their tracks now, even if it was only for a moment. It was certainly more than he'd had before.
He had to be careful with Lyra though. He could tell that she was deliberately finding things for him to say no to, or trying. And for that matter, Loki seemed to be catching on to that game, which was even worse, since Loki tended to be a little more... vehement about what he did.
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Post by Jack on Aug 29, 2020 18:18:22 GMT -6
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