Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Little Man

People who say having dogs is not the same as having children seriously need to spend a few hours at our house.

Apache is my “special” child.  The one with the wild streak.  The one with the rage issues.  He’s a handful… I’d compare him to a bipolar child.  Seriously.  I see a lot of myself in him.  The wild mood swings, the lashing out, the neediness.  There’s very little that is different between the two of us, once you get past the whole, “He’s a DOG” thing. He’s my little boy… in the body of a dog.  I think that projecting human-ness on him (while frowned upon by the Dog Whisperer) has actually helped me to understand him better. It hasn’t helped with the aggression towards strangers, but since we hardly ever have people to the house, I’m not as concerned about it as I probably should be. 

Much like me when I was younger, he has a stuffed animal that is his constant companion.  Actually, scratch that.  I had Matthew the teddy bear.  Apache has two moosies and a puppy.  He prefers the moosies over the puppy, but he doesn’t have a favorite moosie.  He goes everywhere with the Chosen One.  I think one of my most popular phrases is “No, Poo, moosie doesn’t go outside.”  He insists on taking the moosie outside, but once he hits the grass he puts the moosie down and forgets about it.  If you pick the moosie up, he freaks out and won’t leave you alone until you give him the moosie back.  Then he drops it.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

Have I stressed how important the moosies (and puppy) are to him?  Good.  Moving on…

A few weeks ago, one of the moosies was on Arsey’s love seat.  She jumped up on the love seat and threw the moosie on the floor.

Apache walked over to where the moosie landed, picked it up oh so gently and brought it over to where he had been sleeping.  When he put the moosie down, he let loose this big, huge, sigh and plopped down.

Arsey watched this whole scene with the largest freaking grin on her face.  She knew EXACTLY what she did.

Kids.