“When did we
get this dog rug?” Roland asks
for the umpteenth time as we all step over Bonnie to exit dad’s office.
Bonnie is a Saffordshire Terrier mixed
– mostly with the appearance of Pit
Bull – a fat one at that. She is definitely a sweet dog. She’s also a bit insecure.
Jenna
loves dogs. She will go out of her way
to look at them and ask if she can “pet your dog.”
She’ll ask the
owner the dog’s name and
thank the owner and be on her way. Jenna
prefers dogs to humans. Bonnie is opposite.
She LOVES people. Given a choice
of encountering and barking at the ten dogs down the street or spotting one
human in the distance going the other direction –
she will pick the human every time. After
all, isn’t the entire reason the person
is standing outside in the first place is because they want to pet the
Bonnie?
There are many who seem to love Bonnie
just as much as we do and will comment on her waggling tail and do their best
to spoil her rotten. There are others
who seem fearful or angered because she is a Pit and shouldn’t be allowed to exist. I do think she appears to be a threat to
small dogs. Any small dog owner may
think that Bonnie has already swallowed more than her share of small dogs. The truth is, she just wants their owners to
take notice of her and love her as much as they seem to have for their small
rat-sized animals.
Roland went to the mailbox the other
day, and when he returned Bonnie got out of the house and ran into the
street. She wasn’t barking at the man or his dog. I didn’t see it
happen. I just heard Roland say “No, Bonnie!
Come Back!” as though that
is really going to work. I personally
think Bonnie has ADD – or something
like it. She is definitely not the
sharpest knife in the drawer.
Roland says that a dog will find his
master and lay at his feet in order to protect his master. In Bonnie’s case I
believe it’s more to cater to her own
insecurities. Bonnie does not like being
alone. The more people, the better. She LOVES human attention. She does not love the chickens in the
backyard. I don’t know why she feels intimidated by them. She never wants to go out the backdoor.
We
decided that we would get a gate for our front deck. That way if she gets out of the house, she
will still be unable to go out to the street. I told Roland to get something
that we could push open and NOT a temporary gate that has to be removed or
climbed over by the owner. Roland took Jenna to the big city of Roseburg and
purchased a gate. It was the very kind
that I had told him NOT to purchase.
I suppose I should not become upset with him. After all we are both aging and seem to be losing perspective of things that we were told only moments ago. I had to go with him on Saturday to return the gate and find an OUTDOOR gate that we could use over the stairs. When we couldn’t find what we wanted at Petco an employee suggested we try Coastal. When we couldn’t find what we wanted at Coastal, an employee suggested baby gates at Walmart. Wouldn’t you know it, Roland gravitated to a baby gate that was so similar to the dog gate we had returned to Petco. No. No. NO. I made him return home and ordered a gate online. We received two of them yesterday. What prompt and duplicated service. Wow.
Roland has taken Jenna to seminary and
Bonnie is snoring away on my rug – even though
she does have her own dog bed. She
prefers to be in the same room as a human than in the room where her bed is.
