But the Sticks Belong to Dorothy

I wouldn’t exactly say Dorothy was happy when Owen arrived.  In fact, just to refresh your memory, she spent a lot of time his first month home skulking under the couch:

She often gets jealous still, and when one of us is sitting on the floor playing with Owen, she will go get a toy and nudge-like try to get us to play with her instead.  If her efforts fail, she will then cry a bit—a sound Owen is so familiar with, that he will imitate it if you ask him “what does a dog say?”  (Apparently a dog does not woof or bark, but cries, “Nnnnn, nnnn, nnnn”). 

But they have reached a grudging détente, and Dorothy is on the whole submissive to Owen in the house.  He can take toys from her and give them back and she will willingly give them up and then gently accept them.  When Owen puts on her collar like so:

She does not protest.  And Owen adores her.  He calls her “Dorr-Dorr” (although the other day he tried to say Dorothy and came up with Dor-ye) and always wants to know where she is and what she is doing, etc. 

But.  All these niceties change when Owen dares to step foot in Dorothy’s yard.  The yard, humble though it is, is Dorothy’s Eden.  It has grass to eat!  Space in which to sprint!  Woodchucks and squirrels to chase!  And perhaps most important, it has sticks.  It is when Owen picks up a stick in the yard that problems occur.  In the beginning of the nice weather, Dorothy would more or less body slam Owen when he picked up a stick.  But after repeated scoldings, she now knows she is not supposed to do anything when Owen has a stick, although every once in a while she can’t help herself and will gently steal it from him when we aren’t looking.

Poor Owen, who enjoys picking up a stick and will often do so generously to hand to Dorothy, was for awhile picking up a stick and then immediately assuming a defensive posture with his little back hunched and the stick clasped to his front.  But as we all spend more time in “Dorothy’s Yard”, she is getting more accustomed to letting Owen pick up what he will, knowing that soon he will tire of it and will become hers.

Dorothy thinking, but the yard is mine and everything in it.