The Dogs are Crazy

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

It is time once again to devote a blog to those 4 legged creatures that I allow to infest my house, namely my dogs. But first, a word about the cat. Our beloved Tiger has found a new (temporary) home at the mother-in-law's house as we think the son is allergic. Tiger tended to sleep right in his face for most of the night and given certain symptoms the son was presenting, we are giving Tiger a month's vacation. He has yet to write or call us but I am sure he is having a great time sleeping 23 hours a day (as opposed to his normal 22 ½ hours).

Nina (the 75 lb Doberman) is adjusting to the cold, Indiana weather. Her trips outside to take care of business are very, well, very business-like, no wasted time at all really. Get out, take care of business, return to the house, find a heater vent and cover it up with her body. Seriously, I have never even seen a cat that spends as much time lying on top of a heater vent as Nina does. When it first started turning cold here, she discovered this cozy pleasure. At first she was confused when the heat would turn off (even turning slightly violent and attaching the vent cover). After a few bouts of punishment over this issue, she has resolved herself to the fact that hot air does not continually flow from this magical hole in the house. Since Oreo (our 12 lb Shih-Poo) was born here in Indiana and since he has a little more fluff on his bones, he spends a little more time outside. When we had 6" of snow earlier this month (which is about 3/4ths of his overall height) he did enjoy bouncing through it. He left some interesting tracks as well. Also, despite the immense heat that Nina puts out, we have banished her from our bed and she now sleeps with the son (a cat replacement if you will). Oreo has now joined the wife and I in our bed and his preferred sleeping spot is on my pillow, wrapped around my head. This works out pretty well though I do not particularly like waking up to having my head licked.

One thing the dogs fight over constantly is bones. We have 2 or 3 bones for them to gnaw on (or more, depending on how many are under the couch). Nina has her favorite bone, namely whatever one is currently in Oreo's mouth. Oreo does not relinquish any bone without a fight but (in a bizarre dog form of schoolyard bully) Nina just grabs the bone and holds it in her mouth high off the ground and just out of Oreo's reach. He then just grabs whatever other bone is laying around and the whole thing starts over again as Nina shows renewed interest in the bone she had (moments before) abandoned. Another bone game that Nina plays is what we have come to call "bone hockey". I am not sure of the exact rules but the playing field is any hardwood floor and the object of the games appears to be to make an incredible amount of noise. Nina will put one or both front paws on the bone and then (pushing with her back legs) ride the bone across the floor. She also will paw at any bone and send it flying across the living room floor (this is how the bones end up under the couch).

Overall, the dogs are enjoyable and do provide a form of entertainment. Nina provides a form of protection (and so does Oreo though his bark is more of a "sound the alarm" bark and not the "I mean business" bark that Nina commands). Tiger was, of course, useless and I admit freely that I do not miss him at all.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon