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Thursday, February 13, 2014

The New Dog

This is Steven Petrick posting.

By now you are all no doubt aware that Jean Sexton has a new dog that she brings to the office. This dog is, to me, very obviously some kind of mutt with "chihuahua" being the dominant characteristic. Still, I find "wolf" to be an appropriate name because his coat and build scales up to "wolf." He may be small, but he does look very much like a grey wolf.

Unlike the previous dog, this one thinks all people are wonderful, and immediately accepts everyone. The only person he has shown any marked initial distrust for was the traditional foe of all dogs everywhere: The Mailman. Even that, however, may have just been that he could not see enough of the mailman to know he was a "people."

The dog is, like the previous one, a very happy animal, the major differences being the smaller size and that total trust in all people. It is very obvious that in his short life, no human has ever mistreated him to date. Thus he sees all people as a source of food, or petting, or playing. So far he has only been known to bark twice, and both times were at Michael Sparks's cat who was visiting the office. (To be fair, the cat did growl at him.)

He does not like to be left alone, and will whine if he is, i.e., when the office clears out for lunchtime. I know this because today I did not go to lunch and was "tormented" by his whining. However, once the others had been gone for an hour, I decided some of the whining might be his tiny bladder and took him for a quick walk. While he did have a bladder issue, when we got back and he had to go back into his carrier he began to whine even more. I suspect because this was a break in his routine, i.e., that once he gets let out of the carrier after lunch he does not have to go back into it.

It is nice to have a dog that does not bark at anyone walking by in the street, or whenever SVC walks down the hall, although this does not mean the previous dog is not missed, just that the quiet is appreciated.

We are all agreed, however, that the new dog is an excellent watchdog. We have no doubt that if someone breaks into the building, he will watch them enter, watch them pick up the company's property, and watch them walk off with it, all without making a sound.

The previous dog might have had to be bribed with a hamburger, this one can be bribed with kind words and petting.