Sunday, March 6, 2011

A Visit from Wiggler

If there's one thing that Dude is good at, it's visiting with others. It doesn't matter what or who, he'll spend good quality time and enjoy every minute of it. Once I caught him frolicking along a barbed wire fence and on the other side was a young calf frolicking too.

Visiting with others is big fun simply because it's someone or something paying attention to my "attention hound."

Enter, a rather large guest, Wiggler.

Brad and Barb, our friends in Cheyenne have their share of dogs, and Wiggler is one of them. She's a nice dog with a great temperament. Her and Dude could have been litter mates - neither had such a bright future before they were rescued, neither are inclined to bark, both love to play, both get along well with others, and both are attention hounds.

If Wiggler wasn't playing with Dude, she was under the table nudging me for a little clandestine petting. Sorry, I just can't keep a secret.

Anyway, it was a nice evening with friends and loyal four-footed companions. It was fun to watch Wiggler run through the house with Dude chasing after her. It was like a small white horse being chased by a regular size dog. (It's a perspective thing.) And, it gave both Ellen and I a chance to spend time with a breed of dog that has always interested us. If we didn't have a Boston Terrier, we'd likely have a Boxer.

Toe the Line - or get out of the kitchen

Like any dog, my Humper Dude is a snack hound. We're good about not feeding him junk, but he recognizes Ellen as the "snack lady" and so he patiently sits in our kitchen waiting for scraps of meat, cheese, and chips, or his favorite - baby carrots.

And, he's no dummy either, he knows exactly where "the kitchen" begins and ends - it's the line formed by the light colored carpet in the living room and dining room, and the dark colored indoor/outdoor carpet that is found in our galley style kitchen.

I'm certain my buddy Dude is tired of hearing, "Out of the kitchen." But, I'm tired of saying it too. It seems that his overwhelming tendency to be a mooch has him forgetting anything he learned about boundaries associated with the kitchen.

In the photo above, you can see that when he's on his best behavior and his memory banks are working, he knows exactly where the line is drawn, and he doesn't have so much as a nail across the line. If he does, I motion with my index finger and he'll back up an inch or two to fall into compliance.

Not a bad Dude in my book, just a boy who is as much of a "mooch" as he is a pooch. Here's a video that shows how mindful he is.




Maybe that was just luck. What happens when only his toes cross the line? Let's see...



What more could a guy ask for? What a well behaved Dude.