Our new reddish-brown Boston Terrier addition, “Vinnie”, is a character.
The lad is a puppy (16 months), with an inexhaustible supply of energy, who likes to get in the faces of BonBon (2 years old) and Baby (5 years old). In fact, their favorite game together is…”bitey face”, which is common among Boston Terriers. This game can go on for minutes at a time, all parties looking quite aggressive and hostile. However, it is play anger, and no one gets bit…miraculously. They seem to like it, as did our previous Bostons.
Oh, what fun.
Vinnie likes to wrestle. Unfortunately, he’s got the spirit but minimal grappling technique. BonBon may be slighter (in frame) than Vinnie, but she’s pretty quick and experienced, because she’s had a lot of these bouts over the years with her sister. She can hold her own with Vinnie. Baby is the reigning wrestling champ of the house, the Dan Grable of Bostons. She is super-fast and nimble, and knows how to use her quickness and bulk (she outweighs BonBon and Vinnie by six or seven pounds) to keep her opponent on his/her back…essentially defenseless. However, she backs off when they tap out, never basking in victory. Baby has class.
Whenever Vinnie is bored, he will try to take Baby to the mat. It’s a learning process, I guess, and the young Boston is paying his dues. He’s full grown, so his status within the Manning clan is probably fixed, but he keeps trying, bless him. A WWE “rassler” Vinnie will never be, although if he could learn to toss a folding-chair or perfect a Figure Four Leg Lock he might stand a chance against “Stone Cold” Baby.
It’s always fun to watch the three of them burning energy and having fun playing tug-of-war with some doomed “Tuff” toy. I don’t know of any dog toy that can withstand the punishment that three determined Boston Terriers can deal out. Some toys last less than a minute. It’s amusing, but expensive, to witness the focused mayhem.
Vinnie’s skin condition (canine allergic dermatitis) on the back of his neck is on the mend, and he is now free of the inflatable dog collar and the red “smoking jacket” that he wore for quite a while. We now have him on Benadryl and are including Flaxseed Oil in his breakfast. The two remaining wounds on his neck are healing and are growing a new crop of reddish-brown hair.
The AKC calls his coat “Red”, while BonBon is a traditional “Black”, and Baby is a rare “Blue”.
Vinnie is quite the handsome gentleman, with great white markings.
The lad is getting comfortable in and around our property. I failed to put down some toys this morning after breakfast, so bored Vinnie went into our pantry and pulled down a Ziploc bag of tortillas to play with. I guess he feels that anything within his grasp is fair game. That is scary, because the fellow has coiled springs for legs…he can leap maybe four feet in the air from a standing position. During our recent Yuma trip, his favorite pastime in the motorhome was to leap up onto the dash while we were out and then lord over his perceived domain through the windshield.
Vinnie is also claiming some backyard decoration as his own: a large, sun-whitened cow femur bone that was recovered from the local desert by my buddy, Lloyd. Our newest pack member seems to think that the two-pound bone is a toy that he is entitled to move about and munch on at his pleasure. Not exactly what I had in mind when I put it in the yard, but I guess there’s no harm in it. That giant bone will outlast any abuse Vinnie can heap on it.
Another thing that the newcomer has claimed ownership to is the space immediately adjacent to me when I’m sleeping at night. We have a large California King mattress, turned sideways, so there is plenty of room for Charlie and I and the three small dogs to occupy comfortably. Vinnie must have been deprived of human intimacy as a pup, as he is making up for it now by crowding me all night long. He settles in and he doesn’t move, right up against me. And then he snores…like a sputtering chainsaw.
During the daytime hours, Vinnie likes to cuddle with his younger sister, BonBon: they are, after a month together, BFFs.
Another habit he has is to ignore directions from Master Craig when I need to control him. For example, he has the irresistible urge to run to other dogs that he sees while out on a walk with me. This is a non-starter, for our Bostons are known to be quite courteous when on the leash. And, I have a weak shoulder right now and don’t appreciate Vinnie trying to jerk it out of its socket.
So, we’ve got some dog obedience training scheduled in the coming weeks.
It is a process… raising a red-headed stepchild.