Doggie Grudge

When we travel, there's always the conundrum of what to do with Duchess, our wee little sausage-shaped rat terrier. If my mom is home, we can sometimes beg her to take in Duchess, but this time that wasn't an option. We could put her in a kennel, of course, but that's not a good option either because, you see, Duchess hates other dogs. Loathes them. My mom has the biggest, sweetest, most gentle Golden Retriever you've ever seen named Boomer.

Duchess hates Boomer.

Duchess is prejudiced against her own kind.

She prefers people over animals, and women over men. She plays favorites. She likes me best; then Brady, whose bed she sleeps on; then Jonathan, whose bed she moves to after Brady leaves for school; and then Rob. Actually, she doesn't really like Rob all that much, but the feeling is mutual. On rare occasions, usually when he's wearing work gloves, Rob will give her a good scratching. She likes it, but the entire time she looks a bit confused, probably wondering if a good scratch is worth selling a bit of her doggie-soul.

She's my little shadow, tripping me several times daily by pitter-pattering just behind my feet as I go about my day. It was really cute, for about the first three days I had her. Now it's a little smothering to be the sole object of her co-dependent affection.

So usually, when we leave, we have Ben, our neighbor and Brady's best friend, take care of her. Ben homeschools so he is able to come over several times a day to take Duchess for walks, run her around the yard, and feed her. He can also see our yard from his house so he can see if Duchess is getting into any trouble or wandering off.

Before we left, we got her set up in the garage with her crate, well-lined with blankets, her dishes, some rawhide bones, her harness and leash, and her new pillow. She loves her new pillow, she does, so we figured that would make her happy.

But apparently Duchess wasn't so thrilled with the idea of being left behind, because when we got back from Florida, we found bits of fluff scattered around the garage. I wasn't sure where it had come from, until I saw this:

Is that pillow fluff I see?


Why yes, it appears so.

Duchess, what did you do?

"Duchess, you need to look at me."

"Did you chew your new pillow?"

"Were you really that angry at us?"

The ears-back expression is her "I know I did something bad but you have to love me anyway" look.

And just how upset is she? I mean, we're home now, so she's over it, right?

The answer: Upset enough to not lie on her pillow.

She's been sleeping next to her pillow ever since.