This is Doug.*
Yes, he's cute. But, he's also a rescue dog who thinks that the Nowell house needs a moat. And since we haven't installed a moat and dumped large alligators in it, he believes he is the sole form of protection for the entire family.
He's a barker. And not the cool kind you'll find at the state fair. The kind that barks incessantly at the doorbell ringing, a squirrel who dares to walk onto the lawn, or a car that parks in front of our house beyond a millisecond. He's even been known to bark at me, if I'm sitting at the far end of the pool in the backyard. I am about convinced he is half-blind and in need of Lasix. Or, a cool pair of bifocals.
Tex is a purebred Whippet which means he cost too much money and runs faster than the wind, especially when presented with an open door to the big, wide world. And, given that he isn't the typical dog on the street, he is sometimes mistaken for a small deer by people on the jogging trail near our house.**
In this picture, both Doug and Tex look totally normal. Like they'd get along fine. The are, in the picture, sitting in the same cage, after all.
But, looks can be deceiving. Because you know, just like I do, that there are tons of family pictures in your past where you and your siblings look like you didn't just frog each other. But you did.
Same with these two. I've had this ongoing issue with them for the past year, since Costco started carrying a huge bag of rawhide bones and I had the crazy notion that this would be a nice treat. And would keep both of them from developing a habit of chewing on the furniture.
Well, furniture fix. Check. Nice treat. Check. Screaming hissy fit when "HE HAS MY RAWHIDE?" Check.
I swear to you, on a daily basis, Doug comes into the kitchen when I am sitting at the table, puts himself in the nicest "sit" position he can muster and stares at me until I acknowledge him.
If I am in the middle of something and he feels he's sat too long? He starts to make this half-whining/half-crying sound. When I acknowledge him? He gets on all fours and starts wagging his tail so violently that I think he might crack his backbone in two.
This is the beginning of a very long, very tedious, very annoying little dance.
You see, Doug is coming to me as the referee of the house. Each time we go through this routine, it is because Tex has stolen his rawhide.
Case in point, this morning. Tex was nowhere to be found and Doug was standing in the laundry room with me when I opened the cabinet to find the last rawhide. I looked down at him, up at the rawhide, and took pity. He left with the holy grail of treats.
Within two minutes, it had been hijacked by Tex. So I got into the stuffed animal/playtoy/leftover, half-chewed rawhide basket and pulled out a nasty, 1/3 sized piece of hide. And offered it to Tex.
He looked at me like "SERIOUSLY? You've just given that other dog, who came into this family well after me, a NEW one? How do you consider this even remotely fair? Have you lost your ever-lovin' mind, woman?"
Now, you have to understand that Tex is stealth when it comes to rawhide. He could teach Tom Cruise a thing or two about being in the next Mission Impossible movie. He can simultaneously steal Doug's treat and put it in a great hiding place while chewing on his own.
Come to think of it, he is just like a squirrel, putting nuts away for the winter. Except, he's the squirrel the other ones hate, because he takes all the nuts for himself. Greedy little toot.
Within a minute of re-offering the 1/3 size rawhide, Tex AGAIN had Doug's in his mouth. And Doug was sitting at my side, whining, waiting for me to remedy the situation.
The minute I said "TEX!", he dropped the treat and went running for the hills. See, we've gone through this same scenario, day after day, for what seems like an eternity. And it is made all the more worse by the fact that Tex KNOWS he's been disobedient.
The longer I have dogs, the more I realize they are furry children. They fight like kids, using growling in place of screaming "idiot!"***, require regular feedings, need time outs, have to have conflicts resolved, and be taught when and where to poo.
But, even on the worst of days when Doug decides the rug is actually grass and unloads on it or when Tex decides to bolt out the door on an adventure just when I'm leaving for an appointment or when I have to break up one of these ridiculous rawhide wars, I don't think I'd give them back.
But, something tells me, if I'm smart, I'll have one less thing to buy at Costco next time....
*Picture taken by my next door neighbor, who is a great photographer.
**Yeah. I know. A little on the bizarre side. But, nonetheless, a true, albeit creepy, story from the Mike files.
***I just think humans can't hear the cussing implicit in a growl.
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