Bo and His Safe Place

 As Spring continues to try to insert herself into the landscape, I keep trying to get myself into motion to ready my office for the season to come. There is no heat in my office, save a small portable one that can barely take the edge off. 

While we have had a few warm days, it is still mostly chilly in the office. The only windows face south, so the sun never really gets to the windows, which are under the porch roof, until late afternoon, early evening. Just enough to blind me when the sun hits the chrome on a car in the parking lot. My toes are cold and my thumbs are complaining today.

I would much rather sit here with my sweet canines. Mr. BoJangles is curled up with his little head resting on Eddie's belly. Sleeping, he is a sweet boy. My daughter recently had DNA analysis on her dog, Gemma. Gemma is a sweet girl they adopted at a rescue. You only need to look at her to know her strong stocky body and distinct head to know that she is predominantly Pit Bull. Unlike Judge Judy (who hates Pit Bulls), I think there are no bad dogs, just bad dog owners.

That being said, it is true that some dogs are harder to train than others. I would wager a bet that Pit Bulls train a lot easier than a Dachshund. To say nothing of Bo. I told my daughter I didn't need DNA analysis to know that Bo is 60% demon! I thought my Oscar was stubborn, but Bo gives new meaning to training a dog.

Still not a cuddly creature, Bo tends to like to keep me on my toes. I took a picture just now, but neither Blogger or my phone want to connect. So annoying. Bo likes to run and jump into my bed (something that Eddie and Cujo are not able to do) at bedtime. After I lift my doxies up, he acts like he has never seen other dogs in his life. He runs all over the bed and pounces on them gleefully. Cujo growls and warns him to stop, while Eddie complains. Cujo will often follow up with a good nip. I suppose knowing that he will not be in the bed all night makes it bearable.

Toni Louise has a different state of mind. Toni considers the area between the pillows as her territory. She will relinquish it from time to time to let Cujo sprawl there next to me, but nobody else. Seems that Bo decided to take liberties in his exploration of the bed the other night and suddenly there was a growl, snarl and then Bo was crying out in pain. She bit him in the face! She didn't break the skin, but I am sure it hurt just the same on the bony part of is little head. He was still yelping when I finally pulled all the dogs out of my way to pick him up. He would not let me comfort him. No matter that I was talking to him in a soothing tone.

He kept pushing away from me and when he was able to flee my arms, he went straight into his kennel. I had barely been able to get a good look at his face to se if anything was bleeding or broken. He wanted no part of it and I kept getting up to check on him all night. He is very independent! Any one of the other three dogs would have loved the attention and stayed in my arms, but not Bo.

Bedtime is a ritual. I tell them that it is night night pee pee time and Toni Louise starts a frenzy of barking that thoroughly annoys HeWho is her master. This causes the other three dogs to join in and HeWho to yell at them and me to yell at him. Imagine, if you will, that warm fuzzy feeling when you are thinking about crawling into bed. Sitting in a room that is overheated from a fire, drowsy. Then all the barking and yelling. 

I take the dogs out. I have to. The barking and yelling upsets Cujo and he will only go out if I am the one at the door. They rush back inside to find the gate between the bed and the living room open and their Mommy waiting with a dog towel to wipe their feet and lift them to bed. Toni and Bo and jump in and need only be captured for a paw wipe. They wait patiently for me to don my nightgown and brush my teeth, then I tell Bo it is time for his kennel. It might involve him running from side to side in my bed, then finally allowing me to pick him up and carry him to his bed. After the biting incident, I no longer have to persuade him to get in his bed. On bark from Toni Louise and he is off the bed and into his kennel/safe place. 

In case you might be wondering, Toni didn't get into trouble for biting him. I am pretty sure his instigated the event and got a good bite in before she let instinct take over.