Riley is with me while I pet sit for a friend. She was not happy to be here in the beginning and kept going to the front door and bouncing on it with her front paws (fortunately her nails had recently been clipped). She had turned up her nose at the spacious, tree filled, fenced backyard. All she wanted was to go home. Before too long she became accustomed to her new surroundings and got back to her "happy go lucky" self.
Tansy and Brendan are the occupants of the "new surroundings." Tansy is a pup - less than 6 months old, a lab/husky mix with large green eyes and ears that, when they are sticking straight up, resemble those of a rabbit. They are really large in relation to rest of her, except for her feet that is. Her roommate Brendan is an elderly dog. He reminds me of a stately gentlemen. He doesn't interact much with the youngsters but rather observes from a distance. Brendan is a Golden Retriever/hound mix. The hound part of him is evident when he talks. It's more of a baying sound than a choppy barking sound.
Riley is accustomed to getting up in the morning and playing with her aunt Della ( a patient soul). She likes to roughhouse - tug on Della's collar and jump on her. This morning there is no Della, but there is Tansy. Tansy is a quarter of Riley's size so she postures from under my chair on the patio. When the taunts get too loud (from them both), I resort to "Don't touch" and "Enough" commands that Riley knows well. That's not to say that she complies at first. I'm not naturally an alpha in temperament (I've got to work on that.), so my commands often come out more like suggestions or requests, the tone is all wrong. I have to repeat myself and make my tone more authoritative.
With Tansy so much smaller, I've supervised the play times closely. Naturally I feel I need to be protective of my little charge, but she has surprised me. Inside of her is an alpha dog, I think. I'd given all the dogs a biscuit. For some reason Riley did not eat hers right away. Tansy gulped hers down and walked over and took Riley's biscuit right from under her nose, literally. There was no sneaking around; it was a bold move. Tansy even gave a little growl as she did it. Riley didn't care. According to her dog trainer, Riley is a "middle of the road" kind of dog. She just takes life easy and gets along with everybody. I wish I were more like my dog sometimes.
