New hire

Our new hire has already explained to our other dogs that he is their boss. He has already attempted to convince me that he is my boss. I have already explained to him — twice — that bipedal locomotion and opposable digits are prerequisites for holding upper management positions in this pack.

This little guy is 7 months old. He’s a UKC-registered rat terrier from champion bloodlines, and he was within a few points of a champion title himself when the judges decided they didn’t like something about his topline and advised his owner not to use him as breeding stock. Reluctantly, she had him neutered and relegated him to pet status.

His registered name is AdamsAcres Rigel Ruxpin. His dad’s name is Teddy Ruxpin, and his mom’s name is Star something-or-other. Rigel is the brightest star in the constellation Orion. (Longtime readers will understand why I took that as a sign. All others can click here to figure it out.) He answers to “Riggy,” but if he keeps pestering Song and Jason the way he did tonight, we may have to change his call name to “Scut Farkas.”

I doubt I’ll ever love anyone the way I loved Scout, but it’s nice to have an energetic pup in the house to take my mind off the pain.

Emily

Filling a position

I came to a realization yesterday: Scout was my best friend, but she was also an indispensable member of our household staff. When she got sick, some very important work went undone, because the other dogs either weren’t qualified or hadn’t been cross-trained to do it.

We can’t replace our friend Scout. But there are certain jobs around the house that require the assistance of a terrier. In an office, when a beloved colleague passes away, you mourn your friend, but you still have to fill the opening on your staff.

Here at the House of the Lifted Lorax, things are falling apart. I actually had to mop the kitchen floor last week because it had gotten sticky. In her prime, Scout never would have allowed such a thing to happen. The garage door has gotten cocky — it thinks it can go up and down whenever I press the button, without authorization from anyone else — and the mailman thinks he owns the place.

More importantly, the boys don’t have anyone to boss them around. Jason looks and looks at Scout’s empty chair, and instead of going out this morning when Ron opened the door, he went to the living room to lie down. The boss wasn’t around to give him permission to obey his master, so he just didn’t. Meanwhile, Song is totally confused. He knows something isn’t right, but he can’t put his paw on it, and he’s not sure what to do with all this free time he has now that there’s no one to pester. (Oh, sure, he could tease Jason, but that’s no fun — Jason either ignores him or tells him to back off. Where’s the fun in that? Pointless.)

Ron, who thought he hated Scout in particular and rat terriers in general, has been a little lost, and I’m more or less of a basketcase. Housework is piling up because there’s nobody to knock a pile of clutter directly into my path, stick a snout into a forgotten dish on the coffee table, or pee on the carpet to remind me it’s time to vacuum.

We miss Scout and always will, but it’s become painfully apparent that we cannot function without proper supervision.

With that in mind, we are interviewing an applicant for the position of terrier-in-residence this evening. His name is Riggy, and he is seven months old. Judging from his puppy pictures, he will look like a very small Doberman. His current owner is at a show today (she tells me that Riggy himself has been to a few shows and has accumulated a few points along the way, so he’s a little more sophisticated than the rest of us around here), but we’ll be heading down to meet her and find out about Riggy in a few hours. If his interview is as promising as his resume, I expect we’ll be posting pictures of our new hire in the very near future.

Stay tuned….

Emily