River of Enthusiasm

Right!  Time to get this blog motoring again.  After a bit of encouragement and nagging from various quarters I decided a year was a long enough gap.  Where did 2012 go?  Whoops!   But never mind.  So, where were we?  Ah, yes, a growing puppy – who is now eighteen months old, still very puppy-like in many ways but starting to show much more adult behaviour.  I won’t try to fill in the last year as that would be difficult to do, but I am sure a few stories might just creep in.

I had been wondering what I was writing this blog for – I read a small handful of blogs regularly and they always have so much to say that is worth listening to – things that make you think – or laugh – or cry - the best ones do all three.  Should I try do something similar?  Can I match them?  The reality is that I don’t think I can – because that would be imitating and that wouldn’t be true to what goes on in this particular household in a quiet corner of Scotland’s west coast.  So I will continue to write it for the same reasons as I started – for River’s breeder, and various far flung friends and family who were not able to see her in the flesh.  To them, I apologise for the long gap, and hope you will pick up the thread where I lost it.  Mostly though, I will just write it for the fun of it – if I pick up a few readers, wonderful, glad to have you aboard, but I just feel like writing again.

Riversong at Eighteen Months

 “Little” Riversong is now the biggest of my three dogs.  Three dogs?  Afraid so – I lost old Sisko back in June last year.  He did okay at 14, but he had been slowing down, losing weight and getting a bit grumpy.  His time caught up with him and we said goodbye to him before he suffered too much of the pain and indignity of old age.  Things came to a head when he started taking multiple seizures – it wasn’t fair on him or on the others, to keep him going for the sake of it. 

Oddly enough, the rest of the pack were quite subdued for a few days – whether they felt his passing or perhaps they took their cue from me, I’m not sure, but it wasn’t too long before the play started again.  River has a vast reservoir of energy and attitude and it can only be contained for a little while before the dam bursts and all hell lets loose.

It is interesting how the relationships between the dogs has changed over the last year.  For a long time Tussock had very little interest in the young pretender – yes, she would sniff her, play a little, and certainly protect her, but it was with the air of a great aunt who really can’t be doing with these noisy children charging about and disturbing the peace.  How things have changed!  I have never seen Tussock play so much as she has done this last couple of months.  It’s like she suddenly deems River a worthy playmate – someone her own size and build – but most important of all – of the same attitude.

Hovawart play is rough, violent, no holds barred and awesome to watch.  There are shoulder charges, kangaroo jumps, bowl overs, boxing and steamrollering with lots of gnashing teeth, whites of eyes, and vocalisations.  I do see and hear a little bit of a challenge from River and discipline from Tussock - now and again the tone changes and the game will be brought to a halt with disciplinary action from the Boss.  River is still very respectful of Tussock, but she tests her continually the same way as children test their parents.

 

  



 River’s relationship with Talulah is entirely different – she bullies her, bites her, shouts at her and yet Talulah still tries to defend her when the two hovies are playing.  So much so that I have to hold her back to prevent her from getting hurt.  Inside, the two of them are good buddies – sharing a toy, or a bit of firewood, and playing gently – but out on a walk River shrugs off her chummy coat and turns in to Superthug.   That’s a tale for another day.