This is Bobbi, our two-year-old Golden Retriever. She reached that milestone on Wednesday, but it’s only now dawning on me that if we were talking about a human daughter, we would have just entered the Terrible Two’s. And considering how lively and challenging the first two years have been, the thought of Bobbi going through any kind of “terrible” phase is truly terrifying. Fortunately, dogs have their own calendar and in dog years Bobbi has just become a rebellious teenage girl. (We should probably thank our lucky stars that Bobbi doesn’t have a part time job, or she would be reaching that age where she would want to go out and get her nose pierced.) The Terrible Two’s were probably back when Bobbi was eating holes in our walls, and looking adorable doing it. Fortunately, she has settled down a bit. She is still a lot of dog (bigger than Ellie both in dimensions and weight) and has a rather saucy personality (Ellie is much more retiring.) But Bobbi also makes life fun around here and I for one am happy that she is as lively as she is. And although she occasionally bullies Ellie, she is finding her housemate to be made of sterner stuff. For instance, Bobbi used to HATE it when Ellie had a rawhide- even if Bobbi had one as well. Bobbi would want both of them for herself, the little $%^&*I. But now Ellie stands up to Bobbi and Bobbi turns out to have a much fiercer bark than bite, and the two seem more like equals now. Actually, there are two sure-shot ways to tell them apart at a glance. First of all, Bobbi has a little tuft of hair on the top of her head- sort of like Dennis the Menace. (I don’t choose the comparison lightly.) And when the two dogs are walking around, Bobbi’s tail is up in the air as though she were a peacock proudly strutting her stuff. it turns out that Bobbi comes from dog show stock, and would probably be a pretty good show dog were it not for a little bit of surgical snipping which occurred some time ago. (Why snipped dogs don’t get to compete in shows, I don’t know- Maybe we need to start our own dog league- How about DWARF. . . Dogs Which Are Reluctantly Fixed. Of course, we would have to create some events conceived with Bobbi’s particular gifts in mind… such as Houseguest Tackling or Sweat Sock Ingestion. She would be the champ.
Anyway, Happy Birthday Bobbi. This house would be a quieter, duller place without you.