August 3, 2009

Twig the Enforcer


Demon dog is swallowing Bounce whole, OMG...!

Bounce the matriarch and Smoky the yearling like to roughhouse. Bed, floor or front porch makes no difference. They both love a good game of Let's Roll Around and Chew on Each Other.

[As you can see, we're riding the red-eye express. Adds a certain je ne sais quoi to the blurry snapshots, no?]

Border collie Twig doesn't like roughhousing. "Fun" offends her puritan sensibilities, and by "fun" I mean "Smoky." She blames him for everything. Twig's purpose in life is to insert herself between Smoke and Bounce whenever they are playing and make Smoky by God stop. In fact, right this minute she just rushed into the kitchen to make those two behave themselves. Correction: to make Smoke behave himself, since, as I've said, everything is always his fault. If persuasion won't work, Twig isn't above resorting to threats of violence. It's a tough job, but at least it's work.

Much of what Smoke has learned about how to behave around other dogs [that is, to behave with more respect than he ever thought he had] he has learned from Twig.

No more tug-of-war — or else:




"You should put the camera down and say something to Twig. She's messing with me again, and it's having a bad effect on my self-esteem." Sorry, dude — you're on your own.

2 comments:

chris said...

We have Lucy who is dedicated in her role as the fun police. Lucy is a 7 year old smooth collie bitch with a whole lot of "bitch-a-tude." She's also a bit of a hypocrite in that it's OK if she plays with other dogs but if the other smoothies start tussling, she charges to the middle with her lips pursed & eyes narrowed. Lucy has, as common in collies, has fairly thin, highly mobile lips, which means she can pull them up to give a mighty impressive snarl, showing all her gums & teeth (sometimes I swear she grows a few extra for the occasion). Due to arthritic problems in her front pasterns, Lucy lately hasn't been able to keep up with high speed chase games and so positions herself in the likely crossroads, muttering about kids these days, ready to give any drive-by perps a good scolding.

Luisa said...

"...muttering about kids these days": I LOL'ed. Twig shows off that same snarl on a regular basis. Smoky has an impressive play snarl: the inside of his mouth is black, so the teeth really show ;~)