A few of you have been asking me how my pack is doing now that Luscious Fred has gone....
First of all, thanks for thinking of them, I appreciate it.
Secondly, it’s been very weird watching Hoss try and navigate this new course; he has honestly been unable to work out what to do next.
Should he lead?
Should he continue to play the eternal joker?
Out of deference to his old friend, whom he sat beside as he died, it is almost as if he feels he is betraying him by taking up the role of pack leader at the Ranch.
We have kept him busy over the last five weeks, as work is the best antidote for grief sometimes, but he still struggles inside the house with what is expected of him, where he should sleep, if he should claim the hallowed space of the bed.
We are trying to be very clear as to his new role, and offering him the job of Top Dog (at work with guests only; Noodle the shit-eating-Schnauzer mix is head bitch inside our house) if he feels up to it, but in an almost childlike fashion, he reverts to douchebag mode every now and again, as if to say that he doesn’t trust himself to be doing that job just yet.
It’s fine, he can come to it if and when he wants to, but what’s absolutely hilarious is that Hoss has never been a food thief.
You could leave a full roast chicken on the counter top and know it’d still be there an hour later.....in the good old days of Fred and Nelson.
Now, since food thief extraordinaire (Freddie) has passed, Hoss is now behaving in the strangest of ways after eight years residing as a Miller.
He NOW, after all these years, has decided he wants to be THAT guy.
Nibbling at pieces of salami from the corner of my plate when I’m totally rapt in ‘Messiah’ (Netflix, for God’s sake don’t miss this show). I binge watch and he binges on my dinner when I’m not looking!
Stealing cheese off the chopping board as I walk to the fridge....little bugger!
Sitting beside the table giving me the slitty eyeball if I eat bacon, and then if that doesn’t work, making ‘poor abused dog’ goo goo eyes at me til he gets a bit..... which is always.
Listen, I know it’s not deemed right to feed dogs from the table, but I also know that we set our own rules in our own homes and if I am okay with it, then it’s okay.
Sidebar, don’t ever let anyone tell you what’s right or wrong for your dog in your own home unless they’re prepared to buy their food, pick up their shit or pay their vets bill.
So, the long and short of it is, I’m enjoying discovering this new Hoss, who’s actually a bit of a cheeky chappie now, and I kind of like it.
I adore my dogs enough to embrace these so-called foibles in their character.
I love a dog who’s got just a little bit of devil mixed in with a healthy dose of angel...makes for an interesting life, and is why I have always loved Weimeraners so much.
Hoss is a Bloodhound/ Anatolian Shepherd mix with a big ‘woo woo’ sing-song bark and an unparalleled lust for life. 110 pounds of floppy stupidness, when he plonks down into a puddle and rolls around on his back, you have to giggle.
When he rather ridiculously tries to be the Dick Turpin of the snack world, in a lumbering oafish kind of way, he actually makes me swoon.
Maybe he’s just trying to let me know that Freddie is still here in this small way....that he passed the mantle of this skill on, so that I’d never forget my green eyed, gun metal gray-coated love.
Fat chance of that.