Daddy, Your Home!

One of the cutest thing Rowdy does is when I am gone all day and come home.  He comes at me, all whining and happy to see me and stands on his hind legs with his front paws stretched out like he wants to hug me.  It sort of reminds me of a little boy who comes running to his father to hug him when he comes home, excitedly saying, 'Daddy!"

The Sign Monster

Recently we have been going on regular walks and since they widened the highway in front of our neighborhood, they put in a nice wide sidewalk along each side.  On one side of the road, there is a large sign for the Visitors Center, that is a sort of lighthouse with a lighted banner across the upper middle of it.  It sort of looks like a giant with his arms out to his side, resting his hands on his hips.

Well, we have been walking past that sign on the opposite side of the road for weeks, but one day all the sudden, Rowdy stops and started barking at it.  It must have scared him because he barked and peed on the side walk.  For several days he shied away from it when we went past.  He would try to position himself behind me as we past it, putting me between him and it.  I finally took him across the highway several times and drug him up to it, till he finally got desensitized to it and it no longer bothers him.  Silly dog!

Pushing For Attention

Just in the last few weeks and when he is with me when I'm driving somewhere, when I start petting him and then stop to put my hand back on the steering wheel, Rowdy noses under my hand for me to keep petting him.  I can pet him several times and stop.  Then he will nose under and push against my hand to do it again.  This process will repeat over and over again, till he gets tired of it.  I have to be careful and hold on tight to the wheel with my other hand, because he has made me weave on the road a few times.

He has never done that before and doesn't do it any other time, just when we are driving!

Nightmares and Smoke Detectors

This particular evening, Rowdy was having nightmares while he was asleep on his pillow-bed down in the den.  He was really twitching, growling and what I consider to be bark-yipping in his sleep.  He was doing this more than usual, so I woke him up out of it.

He sleeps in a dog carrier for his bed and later, after we went to bed, it was about 2AM and I felt something move on my bed.  I woke up and found him lying on my bed, right up by my face, licking his chops.  I wondered why he was on the bed, because I rarely allow him up there and only tolerate him just putting his paws up on the edge and greeting me sometimes.  But here he was, not only laying on the bed, but right up in my face and then I heard it, the smoke detector low battery chirp.

We both got up and he didn't want to go back into his bed and I also thought that when he excessively licks his chops, he is close to throwing up, so I let him outside for a minute or two.  During that time the alarm quit chirping, so after I let him back in, we went back to our respective beds and went back to sleep.  Not too long after that, Rowdy was back up on my bed, this time lying beside me.  I heard the chirping of the smoke detector again and every time it chirped, Rowdy would jump, tremble and lick his chops.  I didn't help things much by teasing him, grabbing him and telling him, "It's gonna get you!"  Of course I got tickled at the whole episode and laughed at him for being such a cute little chicken dog.  I don't know why the occasional chirping scared him, but the alarm was in the hallway right above where his bed is.

Anyway, I got up, changed the battery and we both went back to bed without further incident.