This morning about 6am, we received our 2nd dog for dogsitting. Our house sounds like a kennel whenever someone walks by on the sidewalk. The dogs, my dogs especially, have a knack for making it sound like they've been neglected and hungry for days on end. Howling, barking, whining and chirping. Today, with 4 dogs, I came home and it literally sounded like we were raising wolves. Lucy can't stand it when we as much as look at the new dogs. She seems certain that we're getting ready to replace her at any time. Mocha, on the other hand, seems to be fairly indifferent, but she tries to keep everyone inline with a bark here and there. She also enjoys feeding off of the new dogs' barking and carrying on long after they've stopped.
The reason this is worthy of a blog entry is because with Inari's visit, I've become aware of the power of Purple Monster. Inari has been at our house before, and she always seems to have a magnetism to Purple Monster. Our friend gave us Purple because his dog, who always chewed squeaky toys into oblivion, would just stare at Purple and bark at it. His dogs were afraid of the monster. Lucy took a liking to Purple immediately and she picked him out of the toy bucket as first choice for several months.
This morning, Inari continued to revisit the toy bucket but was hesitant to grab anything out of it. Then I realized, on her 4th visit, that Purple Monster was staring at her. She was building the courage to pick him up I think. Bear was quite interested in everything in the toy bucket. He proceeded to take about 15 of the toys out, one at a time, and lay them in the front yard. He didn't touch Purple Monster, though. Finally, I heard the familiar squeak, and Inari had finally caught the mysterious monster toy. She was thrilled and very protective, I might add, and had absolutely no intention of giving him to me, or anyone else.
Bear and Inari fought a bit over Purple Monster, and Inari was very pleased when Bear finally gave up, so she could squeak the hell out of Purple. We went into the computer room and she layed down with Purple for about 15 minutes before she started making ground on the destruction of his legs. Alas, I would like to make sure Inari and all the dogs have a chance to play with Purple in the future, so I took him away and propped him on a shelf so she could see him (and he could see her). She watched Purple on the shelf for the next 20 minutes.
When I finally left for work, Inari was sitting in the extra bedroom, still fixated on Purple Monster. It's 1:15 now, and I bet she's still watching him.
