Tuesday, 07 October 2008
Bonnieux’s Revenge
By Camille Koepnick Shaffer
Our four dogs provide both entertainment and frustration. They keep us on our toes with their antics. The real problem children are the two standard poodles: Louis, the year-and-a-half, black one and Bonnieux, the 11-month-old, white one.
You have to realize that Louis is "beyond Alpha" as dogs go - I guess you could call him spoiled rotten and a big baby. We had our first clue of this our first Christmas with him. At the time we only had two other dogs besides Louis: little Ladybug the Chihuahua mix and Cookie the Airedale. Our friends gave each of the dogs a stuffed toy as a gift. Louis went into high gear and grabbed each of the other two dogs’ new gift right out of their mouths - and took off. He managed to guard all three toys and went unchallenged by Ladybug and Cookie. Yes, he was disciplined for this to no avail.
When we got Bonnieux, we thought we now had a playmate for Louis. It did not quite work out as we had hoped. Even though we have a veritable surplus of toys lying around the house, only Louis gets to play with any of them. For example, he can be quite engaged with his "mousie" toy but God forbid if Bonnieux has some other one. That one becomes immediately desirable by Alpha Louis and he steals it away as Bonnieux sulks off, head hanging.
Cookie never wants to get in trouble and doesn’t try to chomp on any toy much less play with it. If one of the poodles does anything bad our first indication of that is from Cookie who cowers with her tail between her legs and steers clear of the mess or whatever else it may be. The two poodles dance around in some sort of victory celebration of their latest evil deed like grabbing all the paper napkins off the counter and shredding them or digging up our new plants in the backyard.
This brings me to the latest Kodak moment. Louis’s all-time favorite toy is his ball, a little larger than a tennis ball. He plays with it from morning till night batting it around with his paws, chasing it, bringing it to one of us to throw it. It goes on and on till Bill or I can’t stand the interruptions and take it away from him.
We have tried to get the other dogs engaged in this ball playing to no avail. Mind you, we have about 8 of these balls. Ladybug and Cookie have completely given up on competing with Louis for one. Bonnieux, being the pup, still gives it his best shot. The other day I gave him a ball to play with alongside Louis and sure enough, Louis left his and went to grab Bonnieux’s. I called for Bill to come and help. Before Bill got into the room, Louis had managed to play with both balls at once, quite a feat in itself, while poor Bonnieux just sat there and watched. Bill had to hold Louis by the collar, give a ball to Bonnieux and let him play while Louis struggled to get free.
A short while later, I had returned to my office and Bill to his when I heard Louis doing his "cry baby" bark. Now this is a very special bark he has developed and we only hear it when Louis is frustrated and not getting his way about something. As you can imagine from what I have said, we rarely hear this bark, but it was in full swing.
Louis was in the hallway outside the door to the guest bathroom, sitting there wailing his pathetic spoiled-brat bark. I looked into the bathroom to see what could possibly going on to cause this only to find Cookie standing there, tail between her legs, frantic look on her face and constantly turning her head toward the bathtub. I knew from her behavior something was really amiss but what?
There was nothing else to see. The shower curtain was pulled across the tub area as usual, nothing awry. Still Louis cried and Cookie cowered. Further investigation was necessary. Cookie became more agitated when I entered the bathroom, looking over repeatedly at the tub. I could not imagine what this was all about.
I moved the shower curtain aside to look into the bathtub itself and saw Bonnieux lying there, the full length of the tub with the damn ball in his mouth, victorious at last, the winner! Louis by then had moved right in next to me, increased his cries of frustration hoping I would grab that ball from Bonnieux. Evidently Louis did not think jumping into the tub on top of Bonnieux was a good idea. He is miserably spoiled but he isn’t stupid. He is very intelligent and at least avoided what would have been a sure fight in such close quarters.
I turned, left Bonnieux in the tub to relish his moment of victory and called Bill to come into the bathroom to see this Kodak moment - priceless.
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Posted by Ronni Bennett at 05:30 AM | Permalink | Email this post
Comments
Oh, how funny! And what a smart puppy! I hope he & Louis can figure out a way to play together.
I'm down to one dog and your story reminds me to get on with getting another. I love poodles (my faves are the inbetween size)--they're so comical.
Posted by: mary jamison on Oct 7, 2008 9:32:24 AM
I've never had more than one dog at a time - maybe this is why! LOL
He is a very smart pup and a definite keeper!
Posted by: kenju on Oct 7, 2008 10:14:02 AM
