Riley ...Our Love Bug

 

We've never had a dog with arms before, but now we do. She hangs both of them over the side of the chair or sofa like she's listening to a story or better yet some juicy gossip when we're in the room. She definitely pays attention to us. Especially if there is any type of food involved or within sniffing distance. 

Whenever any one of us leaves the house, she settles in on top of the back of the sofa and watches from the living room window. She watches us leave and will stay in that spot for over thirty minutes until she's sure it wasn't just a quick trip to the neighbor's house and we actually left the neighborhood.

 If I'm out in the yards with her and one of the kids leave either walking or on their scooter, she waits by the fence and patiently sits awaiting their return. When they come back ten or fifteen minutes later she goes crazy as if they have been gone for two years.

The girl just makes you feel good...every time you see her. She's a pretty sharp pup as well. We have a motion sensor light under our carport so we are alerted when someone enters our driveway or carport. Massey has it linked to my cell phone since I am the one pretty much always here and a lot of times alone, with everyone still working except me. It makes a slight two note chime to alert outside movement and didn't take long for Riley to figure it out. I can be at the back of our house with her in our bedroom, which is on the total other side of our property, and if the tone goes off, she's off like a rocket to the back of the couch in the front living room to see who's here. Every. Time.  Amazon, FedEx, UPS, USPS or solicitors can't sneak up on us. The girl's a barker, that's for sure.

We've always had dogs, and had three when we first moved to Orlando. 

Ham, Ziggy and Charlie...left to right. This was taken back in Georgia when we first got Ziggy as a pup.

Charlie the English bulldog lived to be thirteen,very long life for his breed. Ham lived to be fourteen, blind since he was just six but was the greatest gentle giant ever. Zachary was closest to Charlie and Ham was Massey's baby. Ziggy was a horrible puppy when we got him, took three years to get him house trained and was constantly jumping the back fence and disappearing for hours at a time. We weren't in a really good position when we got him but he needed a home and we wanted the little stinker. I was working seven days a week and we simply never had time to spend on training him properly...but I loved that Lil Houdini. I called him that because a six foot privacy fence was nothing to him. He found way after way out of that yard, we even rolled hog wire across the back of our property in the woods. You'd let him out and watch him wander the yard. The minute he would head to the back, we'd yank open the kitchen door and yell his name. He'd run straight to the back fence, turn around and look at us and promptly hop the fence like it was a baby gate. Early one morning he was gone for about four hours and I was frantic. This was when Massey was a freshman in college. She happened to call and I told her he was gone. She called me back twenty minutes later and said she had found his picture posted on a Lost and Missing Dogs in Coweta County FB page. This is the picture.

The school nurses at an elementary school almost a mile from our house had him in their office. He was playing with all the kids who were at recess on the playground. We had him neutered the next day, which helped a bit but he ended up having to be left on a run in the back yard when we left him out to do his business. We eventually got a new fence put up across the back and kept him contained and the little escaper turned out to be a really great dog! He was my Baby Boy, and that's what I called him. 

After Charlie, then Ham died, Ziggy lived to be almost twelve. When he was almost eleven we found Riley through a post where someone was trying to get him rescued/ re homed. Ziggy wasn't real crazy about Riley at first, probably because Riley is crazy, but they ended up bonding and Riley was Ziggy's biggest fan (besides me).

When Ziggy died, it broke my heart...literally. I felt a little a distance come between myself and Riley, no fault of Riley's, just my deep love and allegiance to my dear sweet Baby Boy. I probably cried every day for a month if not longer. Riley hadn't been the best puppy since we'd adopted her, accidents in the house, pestering Ziggy and chewing up about five or six remote controls and a $200 headset of Zachary's.

But after Ziggy died, and I mean almost immediately, Riley simply stopped all her bad habits and turned into a perfect house mate. No more accidents and after a few stern finger wags in her face, quit all her bad habits just like that.

Now I call her Baby Girl. She's a delight to be around and you can't help but smile when you see her little face with one wacky eyeball and that long tail swatting back and forth like a fur whip. We've never had a dog with a tail before but hers is full of personality and suits her perfectly.

She's with me every single day, with everyone else working and I have quickly spoiled her rotten. It's hard not to, she's such a little hoot and love bug. I sit at the kitchen table and have lunch every day while everyone's at work and she pops up onto the bench beside me and sits about ten inches from my face. She never tries to eat my food or take anything from my plate but she doesn't miss one crumb which may happen to fall, no matter how minuscule. She's nimble as a cat.  Our kitchen table is an antique butterfly table my mother in law gave me and one of my neighbors built me two picnic benches that I painted and use on either side. Maybe a foot across from the front to the back , but she sits up like a princess and can even step around me from one side to the other when she wants to look out the window when people walk down the street outside. When I sit at our table on the lanai, where I spend most of my day, going in and out of the yards and cool off under the two ceiling fans on the lanai, she scooches in behind me in the chair. She can even manage to curl up and lay down if she wants to.

I can feel her little whiskers on the back of my neck and it always makes me smile. She's got more stray whiskers than a catfish. That, along with her nimbleness got her another pet name from me, "Little Kitty Catfish".  

We've never had a dog who likes to play fetch but we've got one now. Holy Moly. She would chase a ball all day long if we'd keep throwing it. I bought her a soccer ball with straps on it to carry it by and she'll chase it until she's about to have a heart attack and we have to take it away from her just to get her to rest and get some water. And squeak toys? Don't even get me started. We don't let her bring her balls and fetch toys inside because they get dirty and muddy. She knows it, and will promptly drop it onto the pergola if she wants in the house. In the living room we have a basket where we keep all her inside toys. Her monkey, sheep, elephant, monster head, little igloo and a rabbit and fake roll of toilet paper. She's (thankfully) torn the squeaker out of most of them and I have to stitch them up on the weekly after she slings them around like a maniac and will chase and play tug of war with you as long as you comply. Riley's momma didn't raise no quitter, that's for sure. She also knows those toys aren't allowed outside and drops them by the door on her way out the door to the porch and yard. She has unbelievable catching abilities and can jump like a spring and snatch a ball you throw before it even hits the ground.

In other words she is a very entertaining companion. And being alone most every week day, she has quickly become my best friend. I'm not sure who loves who more, but I know she helped my heart heal after Ziggy's sudden death and departure...and she loved Ziggy a lot, just like I did.

There's a reason Dog is God spelled backwards. They are both unconditional and constant love and will always have your back.

You should see her when Tim gets home from work. We're usually out in the yard and she goes nuts the minute he pulls into our driveway. He gets home at five and always feeds her her dinner...it's their thing and I think both of them look forward to it. Tim travels a bit around the state for work every few weeks and sometimes even to Georgia and South Carolina. He said sometimes when he's leaving the office wherever he's working to drive back home he'll say he's ready to get home and see his girl. They all say "oh,you mean your wife?" and Tim will say "no, my dog."

I'm okay with that because I understand the hold this little minx has on all of our hearts. Zachary walks her every single morning  around the block after feeding her and she loves it.  I can hear him talking to her when he leaves for work (calling her sweetheart) and explaining to her that he has to leave but will be back soon and he'll play with her then. And he does. 

Massey has even fallen under her spell and Ham was her baby, so it took a little longer with Riley but she's the one who drove to meet the woman from Tampa who was giving her away so it was bound to happen, just took a minute longer.

I don't know how people can live without a dog in their life, they are the biggest blessing a human can have on their side. They never complain, never ask for anything and always, always love you...no matter what. Love is a four legged word.

She listens to my ramblings, rants and even my horrible singing and never tells me to hush. Rather she tends to act like I'm the biggest deal since dog biscuits were invented.

Could she act a little better at the fence when people simply try and walk by our house? Absolutely, but what are you going to do...she's protecting her turf. She doesn't bark when she is outside the fence on walks, it's just a territory thing. She's finally quit barking at the mailman after over two years of constant harassment, much to his relief I am sure, and is all bark. The garbage truck that picks up our cans with the huge mechanical arm terrifies her and she runs to the back yard to get away from it, begging to get in the back door to the lanai. Construction vehicles freak her out too and we have a lot of them with several houses being built on our street the past year or so. So she's really a chicken and that's okay too. Her only aggression issue is trying to shake the stuffing out of her toys.

In a world full of hateful political unrest and character assassination in a contentious election year, she is calming happiness and makes us smile every time she walks into a room or every time we come home and she her waiting by the door with that long tail wagging behind her like a canine metronome, waving hello to us.

She is everything to us and I'm pretty sure we are everything to her. It's a pretty sweet deal for all involved.

Till next time...COTTON