Chelsea will stop at nothing when it comes to getting her dad’s attention. But it wasn’t always this way. When Eric Howe first moved in with his girlfriend, Chelsea’s mom, it took the pup a little time to warm up to him.
So what helped Howe and Chelsea become friends? Video games.
Eric Howe
“When I first moved in, Chelsea would basically ignore me unless I walked over to pet her,” Howe told The Dodo. “One day, I noticed that she would whine and jump on me when I played video games. This behavior kept getting more and more animated as time went on.”
Soon, Chelsea was trying any over-the-top tactics she could think of to distract her dad from the TV. Howe found Chelsea’s reactions so hilarious that he started secretly filming her whenever he played Xbox.
Eric Howe
In one video, Chelsea walks into the room and sees Howe playing his Xbox. She immediately trots over to him and stands on her hind legs, wagging her tail. Howe refuses to acknowledge her, so she hops on the bed next to him and wraps her paws around his arms.
When that doesn’t work, she stretches her body across him and stares intensely, before launching an attack of licks, paws and scratches. You can watch it here:
While Chelsea loves attention, some of this behavior also comes out of concern for her dad: “I think the reason she bothers me when I play Xbox is because I get mad at the game and raise my voice,” Howe said. “She will be sitting quietly in her bed when I start playing, but as soon as I yell at my game she jumps up to try and interrupt me.”
“She doesn’t like seeing her humans upset,” he added.
Eric Howe
Chelsea deserves all the attention in the world — and she knows it.
“Chelsea bothers my girlfriend and me anytime we devote attention to anything other than her,” Howe said. “She gets more and more needy the older she gets. I think her behavior is hilarious.”