Boogie's blog

Boogie, Butch and the Greenie Bone

October 14, 2010 at 9:42 am 3 comments

I am dogsitting Christa’s boston terrier this week while she is out of town.

Butch has stayed over many times before and the two boys get along fine. Well, they don’t love each other (in fact, they both compete for my attention) but they don’t hate each other. They both sleep with me under the covers, and snuggle with me on the couch.

Things get tricky when it comes to STUFF.

1. Boogie does not like to share his toys.
If I offer a toy to Butch, Boogie swoops in like the wind and grabs it out of my hand so that Butch can’t have it. Boogie runs off with the toy and drops it on the ground as if to say:  No I don’t want to play with the toy. I just don’t want Butch to have it. It’s MY toy. When Boogie sees Butch gnawing on a toy, Boogie sits there and waits. The split-second that the toy drops out of Butch’s mouth onto the couch or floor (usually by accident),  Boogie runs off with it. Thankfully, Butch isn’t toy-possessive so he doesn’t care.

However…

2. Butch becomes fixated on a toy if Boogie is playing with it.
I offer Butch many toys but he is only interested in the ONE toy that Boogie is chewing on,  so he stands there and barks and barks and barks.  He refuses any other toy. He wants the one that Boogie has. Boogie carries on with his toy and ignores Butch who continues to wake up the neighborhood until I take that toy away from Boogie and NOBODY has any toy. Sometimes I take that toy away from Boogie and give it to Butch… knowing that Boogie will eventually steal it back when Butch takes a water-drinking break.

Last night, things didn’t go so well. I made the mistake of offering a Greenie Bone to Butch.

At the time, I thought to myself: Boogie doesn’t like these bones anyway. He has NEVER chewed on a nylabone or greenie bone or any non-synthetic bone. I figured that he wouldn’t steal   this from Butch. Of course it didn’t occur to me that Boogie thinks of the greenie bone as a “toy”, not as the edible thing that it was to Butch. Butch may not be toy-possessive but he is a food resource guarder…

Butch was on the couch chomping away on the bone when Boogie approached him. As soon as Boogie got close, Butch stood up, hackles raised, and growled.

Before I could run over to the couch to grab that bone, a  fight had broken out between the two dogs. Five seconds later I managed to separate the dogs (then put Boogie in his crate) but in the process of prying apart two growly bitey heads, my finger got caught up in someone’s mouth and… OUCH. Bleeding, swollen left pinkie with two teeth marks in it.

After tending to my first ever dog bite injury, I released Boogie from his crate,  inspected both dogs  and saw some minor bleeding on both their chins. I applied hydrogen peroxide and neosporin. Butch licked my throbbing swollen finger (“Sorry”) and Boogie stayed away from Butch for most of the evening. He even refused to share the couch with both of us, taking off to the bedroom with a mopey look on his face. I eventually got both dogs back on the couch with me, snoring and pooting the night away.

Dogs were fine and “friends” again. Everything back to normal.

Today I bought TWO identical corn cob chew toys and both bosties happily minded their own business.

Entry filed under: Social stuff.