Dogs! (Gollum!)

Our two newest canine additions are an interesting set of contradictions at times. Sometimes they behave almost like furry little toddlers - they follow me around, beg for food and want to be picked up and carried all the time. They have decided that civilized animals sleep on beds, so if they both disappear in mid-day, that's where I usually find them napping. They also "talk" - I swear Rugby almost has "mamma!" down pat now - and whine and generally do everything they can to communicate in "our language." But then there are times when they are just very doggy.

Take the other day. Our big male cat, Aramis, brought in a mostly-dead vole. He wasn't all dead yet, just mostly dead. Although I didn't get the bellows out and ask him what he had that was worth living for, his condition was pretty apparent. Anyway, I looked up from doing homework (it seems I do little else these days) and watched as Aramis came trotting proudly into the house with his prize - closely flanked by two small dogs who were very intent on finding out just what he had in his mouth. I could almost hear them say, "what's it got in its mouthses, Precious? Is it crunchable? Is it tasty? Is it juicy? GOLLUM!"

I finally took the now completely dead vole away from all three of them (I had to actually pry Rugby's mouth open and remove the saliva-slicked corpse) and soothed their wounded sensibilities with some treat bribes. We have a lot of voles in the garden and they do a tremendous amount of damage and breed like, well, like voles. Because of this, I really don't want to discourage any of the pets that have a mind to hunt. But I also don't want to have to deal with parasites, so that's our compromise.

This propensity to want to eat nasty stuff is just one of the many reasons why, although I do tend to baby my dogs, I still recognize that they are dogs. Although... a friend of mine once told me a story about herself as a baby. It seems her mother came in one day and found her crunching something. Something that was sticking partway out of her mouth. Something that had long, waving feelers. Something that looked an awful lot like a super-sized cockroach. Ewww.

So maybe there aren't that many differences after all. But at least I don't need to worry about sending the pups to college.
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