It's *my* toy, dammit!

This is the newest addition to our family, Napoleon. He's a 14 1/2 week old beagle, who shares his birthday with our faux Siamese cat, Sunny.

Sunny was born in a storage shed at my office on Groundhog Day, 2003. The momma kitty decided that the Sony box was the perfect place to have a litter of kittens.

When I first saw Sunny on the second day of his life, I could tell he was going to be a Siamese. Of course he wasn't purebred, but he looked Siamese anyway. He's quite full of himself, and goes out of his way to let you know that this is his world, and he's just letting you share it. Sunny was my addition to the animal farm at our house.

After our lawn tractor was stolen in 2002 at the rental house on Geer Street in Durham, Donna decided we needed a German Shepherd Dog to act as a watchdog and protector for her and the girls. That's when we got our Rio Grandé Girl.

Donna trained her, and she's a pretty smart dog although she still likes to play with the black and white striped kitties too much (see blog entry entitled "Things that go skunk in the night").

Well Rio and Napoleon get along *most* of the time. Nappy's doing his best to keep our old girl in shape, and she really enjoys chasing around the yard with him. But, when it comes to who's rawhide chewy toy is who's, well all friendships are tossed out with the garbage. Rio will simply not tolerate Napoleon touching the rawhide chewy that she thinks is "hers".

This morning was a perfect example. Rio was lying down under the kitchen table, and Napoleon went around the corner of the kitchen island. Now Rio *knew* that her rawhide chew toy was there, and even though Napoleon was out of sight, she also "knew" that he was playing with it. Well yes, he was. She got up from her repose, and promptly walked around the island and bit the puppy on the head, while emitting a fierce, blood-tingling growl.

If you've never heard a beagle "cry" when it's startled or hurt, let me tell you - it will melt your heart. Napoleon started yelping and crying with his eyes closed. Picking him up did nothing to comfort him at all, so Donna took him out of the kitchen onto the back deck. He finally stopped crying, and crawled under a plastic deck table for protection.

Meanwhile, Rio was told in no uncertain terms that what she did was bad. She got the idea. She's a shepherd after all, and they're pretty darn intelligent. Smarter than some people I know.

But, in a few hours all will be forgotten and and forgiven between the two dogs, and they'll be romping around together again - until the next time Napoleon tries to play with Rio's rawhide chew toy, that is.