It’s the time of year for us to babysit the boys next door again. Last year it was just Barley and Harvey’s sister River who was staying there over Christmas. This year it’s Barley and Hops. It’s a bit more work taking care of two dogs, but you won’t catch me complaining. Not after the same neighbor took such good care of our cats and dogs (even Murray) while we took the RV to California. I’m more than happy to take my crochet projects and iPad over and keep the boys company for a few hours a day. This way Hops doesn’t have to spend most of a week in a kennel, and Barley can mope at a human about how he is the most abused dog of all time. At least that’s what he said today. He’s still in the Cone of Shame from getting his ears roughed up two weeks ago (pretty sure that his little brother was playing too aggressively when they had a guest dog), and he hates the cone more than anything. I have never seen such a dramatic display. He has to be forced off the couch to go outside, and every single step involves bashing the cone into something and wiping at it with his front paws. He is desperate to remove it or break it into unusable pieces.
Once the boys had their outside time, Barley sat on my feet while I crocheted, and Hops demonstrated how full he is of puppy energy. He kept bringing me rope toys to play tug, but growling with crazy eyes when I engaged. I’m just not sure I trust him that much, not with Cone Boy sitting on me as an example of how it all can go wrong. Hops still wants to be friends, though. He showed me how cuddly he can be, making sure his butt touched 85% of my crochet piece while he tried to find a comfy position on my lap.
I’ve had a difficult relationship with dogs most of my life. I like them in small doses, and I am adamant that they never put their mouths on my face. I’m learning to handle them more and more, and I’m getting much better about interacting with them. It helped having the greatest dog of all time, for the brief moment in time that he was mine (12 years). I’ve been missing Bump something fierce this week. I hear his voice every time Hops barks (sounds exactly the same), and yesterday there was a handsome fella in the car parked next to mine, waiting for his human to conclude their business in Petco, who looked just like my dearly departed Bumpy. Sometimes I think I’m almost done grieving, to the point where I can consider watching out for the next dog who will live with me. Then days like yesterday remind me of how good I had it, and I stop wanting to move on from the memory.
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