Dogs in Bandanas

Sweet Lily Bear

Awesome things about Lily:

1) She loves her boy. Every morning when I leave for work, she asks to be let into Tristan’s room, where she sniffs his mouth and face and then curls up behind his knees and lays her head over his ankles. At night when he is at work, she curls against the front door to wait for him to come home. Or she lays on the end of the couch by the front window and stares out through the curtain, waiting for his car to pull up.

2) Protective: This dog will bark for days at all the people who get too close to her house, which includes those who are throwing their garbage away in the dumpster across the street. She also barks at the squirrel stealing from the bird feeder. The Doves wandering the sidewalk looking for fallen seed. The cat dumped in the neighborhood who is just looking for a warm place to sun. The rose bushes moving in the wind. The voices in her head. You get the idea.

3) So very silly. Her very favorite thing to do is to put her head inside the ripped top cover of the dog bed and then snarl and paw at the underside of the outside cover (we keep two covers on the dog bed or she will rip open the only cover and play this game in the foam pellets that fill her dog beds). Her sister will bounce her head from the outside and play bitey face through the material.

Lily Bear is sweet and sensitive and a little scared, so we have to manage who she comes in contact with and how that interaction plays out. She has learned come and sit and stay while in the house and understands what is expected of her, but sometimes her nervous energy gets the best of her. She has a Jolly Ball that she carries around as her pacifier, which does seem to help her regulate her nervous energy.

Skittle Bug

Skittle may be both the sweetest and the snarliest dog at the same time. 

1) Tristan taught her a game of snap and snarl when he blows on her nose. She lifts her lip in warning when he starts the game and then snaps and snarls at him as they play. She’s never gotten close enough to even touch skin when playing and knows it is a game. I’ve played with her as well and always need to remember to not sit with my back to the wall, since my body reacts to the movement of the dog and I have slammed my head into the wall hard enough to ring my bell.

2) She loves her treats. She really doesn’t understand that the treat area is not a buffet or feed on demand type of event. She is adamant in her need and desire for a treat and has taken to barking, talking and poking me in the side with her nose if I am ignoring the demand for MOAR TREATS. Her favorite are the bully sticks, which she steals from her sister, puts on the dog bed, lays her chest over them and then snarls and snaps at Lily. 

3) Cuddle Bug. So much cuddling. She is the dog that lays curled against the back of my legs every night, or sometimes stretches out full length against my back. I get up a couple of times a night to pee and she sometimes grumbles about the movement in the bed, or perhaps warns that I am disturbing her sleep. When she lays back down she inevitably puts her elbow into the soft flesh in the back of my leg, resting all of her weight on her very sharp elbow. The price I pay for disrupting her sleep. 

Skittle is also the dog that wakes me if either of them need to go out (usually Lily) in the middle of the night. She will pace and use her nails to wake me up, or woo-woo at me if the pacing doesn’t wake me. Sometimes she has to resort to pawing at me in bed to get me awake. This is also the tactic used to wake me if she thinks she needs to be fed. She is the dog that keeps the household on schedule and meals coming at regular intervals. She also knows sit, come and stay, but just doesn’t think they apply to her, most of the time.

Joy. They are absolute joy.