Bait and Switch

This is a Quado bone. It lies.

I bought a Quado bone several months ago to add a little variety to King Spoiled's array of bones and chew toys. It *claimed* to offer hours of chewing with 4 different bones made of rock hard edible material. TWO devoured it in less than 20 minutes the first time I gave him one. False advertising I say. Hours maybe if you give it to a little chihuahua or some other kind of slipper dog. However, due to TWO's excessive, "I forgot I'm supposed to be a shy, terrified dog" level of ecstasy and joy when he gets one of these, I bought him one today. Which he demolished in exactly 23 minutes. I may as well just give him my hard earned dollar bills to chew up. We also bought bully sticks, a huge bottle of salmon oil, beef liver treats for nail trimming times, two huge packages of raw bones and a bag of frozen turkey necks. King Spoiled will be running his little fanny off before work with me to offset these treats of the gods.

He has been amusing me to no end lately. Yesterday, I took him for a walk on a nature trail in the middle of the day. Due to it being a sunny day (I didn't say warm, just sunny) there were more people and dogs out than we are accustomed to seeing on our outings. He did remarkably well and did not freeze once despite being caught several times on a boardwalk that forced people to be in close proximity to us unless I wanted to hurl myself over the edge into the quicksand swamp below. He almost passed for normal.

And then I decided to add on one last 1/4 mile loop to our route. Now this is a dog whose homing device in his head rivals that of a pigeon. There can be 14 different trails that he's never seen before in his life and he can unerringly remember exactly which one will take him back to the car the fastest way possible. So even though it was sunny and *I* was cold, he was overheated and tired and evidently wanted to go back to the car and go home. As we passed the trail back to the car, he stopped, planted his feet, looked at me and said, "Uh uh. This way." Kind of like what I say to him when he freezes. We both dug our heels in and were at an impasse for 15 minutes. He was not stressed. He was not frightened. He was merely bemused by my stubborn inability to see that he was right and it was time to go. He does not have a temper tantrum like Hudson would. He sits calmly in his quiet, zen-like know-it-all manner and waits for me to get a clue. When I realized that *I* was actually the one having a temper tantrum when he would not go my way, especially given that the only reason I wanted to go that way was because I thought he needed a longer walk, I had to laugh. My dog is now parenting ME. He had evaluated the situation, being a Maremma, independently reached his conclusion and was patiently waiting for me to reach the same conclusion. So we went his way. He is not far enough along yet in his rehabilitation to actually prance back to the car with that "I told you so" look that Hudson has mastered. At least I still have my pride.

Last night I came home to him stalking a fly that had come in the slider. He and Maudie were vying for hunting rights and nothing gets him all fired up like things floating or flying in midair. To mess with his mind and for my own sick amusement, I sometimes pull out a piece of down from one of my coats and set it free. TWO goes berserk trying to "kill" it and snap it out of the air but it's so light he invariably fails. I figure if he won't chase a ball or play with toys, I have to resort to creative things that border on torment.

This morning I was sitting on the sofa reading The Economist and drinking my coffee. TWO was in his usual place, seated very primly and properly next to me gazing out the front window ready to defend the house at the first sign of life outside. When nothing materialized, he turned around and stared intently at me which is his sign that he wants me to snuggle with him. When I raised my magazine and firmly told him I was otherwise occupied, he raised a paw with the slowest and most deliberate of motions, never taking his eyes from my face and put his foot dead center on Nicholas Sarkozy's face and let his foot drop like a rock. My magazine splatted onto my lap and he held his foot there, his expression never changing. He can always make me laugh and I swear he is human sometimes. He made it abundantly clear that whatever is going on in France can wait. He is here now and he wants attention. Dammit.

My funny boy and I have settled into a fairly regular routine at long last. We no longer need the doggie gate at the bottom of the stairs when it's bed time. He knows when I am getting ready for bed and will put himself to bed without the lure of a cookie now. He knows when I am getting ready for work and he waits impatiently by the garage door. He knows when I am getting ready to go somewhere without him and he gets his "How could you?" look in place so it's the last thing I see as I leave. And he's less spasmodic in greeting me when I return as he seems to finally have realized that I do always return and sometimes he can't even be bothered to move his large rear end off the sofa to greet me at the door. He is much calmer and recovers much more quickly from things that used to really set him back. And as he calms down, his real personality and self seep through the cracks. Sometimes he forgets himself, especially in the morning when I get up and he is a wiggly, squiggly ball of puppyish joy before it occurs to him that he is afraid of half the world still. But I know it's there and I see more and more of it now.

Sometimes bait and switch works out for the better!