Both of them are silently protesting the presence of Hector, who is still homeless simply because he's going to be a huge dog.
This means they are refusing to alert on anything when we are at home, where Hector is.
Xoco has always hated Hector. From the moment he came through the front door when she was bigger than him, she hated him. She expressed that hatred by getting as far from him as she could, by chasing him away from her special toys, and by pushing him off the sofa with a particularly manically happy look on her teeny little face. Snidely Whiplash is a wimp compared to Xoco expressing her hatred of Hector.
Poor puppy Hector.
Hector is 4 weeks older now and 14 pounds heavier than when he arrived. He's grown from a height of 5" to being 16" tall. He's still puppy clumsy, moves a lot like a rhinoceros. He's slimmed down a lot and will be a lean but very large dog, if he's weighing in at 18 pounds when he's 11 weeks old.
Itzl has been willing to play with him, mostly by leading him on a chase. Hector is still slow compared to either Itzl or Xoco even if he has gained some speed.
But neither Itzl nor Xoco wants Hector to stay.
They've protested his presence in many ways - hiding their toys from him, pushing him off the sofa, running fast because they learned early on he's slow, tag teaming him, shutting the doors on him, and "tattling" to me about everything he does. When those didn't work and Hector continued to live here, they started shunning him. That didn't work, so when we're at home, they've started shunning me, except they forget they're shunning me until they see or hear Hector.
When they are in "shun" mode, they won't alert on sounds.
Last night, a friend dropped by. Itzl and Xoco were in full "shun" mode because I'd just spent half an hour playing with hector and working on his training. Neither Itzl nor Xoco responded to her knocking on the door or using the doorbell. She took a chance and called a mutual friend to see if I was online by any chance. I was, and was in fact in a chat with said mutual friend.
Suddenly, I get this message, "There's someone at your front door."
Our mutual friend lives a couple of miles away.
"How do you know?" I ask. "None of the dogs are altering."
"Because she just called me to ask if you were on line."
"Oops!"
So I went to the front door, and sure enough, there she was, laughing at us.
I explained about how Itzl and Xoco were doing their best to train me to get rid of Hector by "shunning", what they think is their most powerful tool because it works so very well on them.
They are confused about why it's not working on me, but they don't understand the complexities. I have 2 choices for Hector. I can find him a forever home or I can take him to the shelter. Not one of the no-kill shelters within a 50 mile radius will take him because they are full. The local city shelter is a kill shelter and they flat out said they would euthanize him when he was brought in because he might have some terrier in with his mastiff, boxer, and bulldog mix, which would classify him as a pit bull mix. Oklahoma City shelter said the same thing.
So I have to find a forever home for him, and soon. Or Itzl and Xoco will never speak to me at home again. And if I'm not on line, how will I know there's someone at the door?