Owen and his Animals

When Owen arrived in our household, there were already five of us living here:  me, Sean, Dorothy, Plum and Posy.  Whereas his appearance was a little traumatic for the pets (well, except that we think it took Posy about four months before she noticed he was there), Owen’s landscape has always included beasties lying about.  And he is quite good (so far) with all the animals, especially since he is not very physical with them in general.

He is fond of Dorothy and will introduce her to us and whoever else might come to our house.  When we are away from home running errands, he will say that he wants to go home to Dorothy.  And when they are outside together, he will bring her sticks (which is good, since Dorothy will take them from him regardless).

I’d say of all three pets, Plum is the one who likes Owen the best.  Dorothy knows she has to behave well towards Owen, but she is jealous of him and will often sit on the couch and cry when we play with him (Oh! The long suffering bulldogge!).  So her feeling towards him is more tolerance and a grudging acknowledgement that she had better be nice to Dad’s young.  Plum, on the other hand, is interested in Owen – no doubt it is probably more that he is willing to have another lesser being in his, the alpha male’s, household, but this manifests itself in affectionate leg rubbing while Owen is watching TV and a general interest in what Owen is doing.  Plum will talk to Owen too, and meow at him in a friendly way.  This is all good, since Plum’s tendency to urinate outside the box has not put him in his father’s good graces, to put it mildly.  Being nice to Owen seems the least he can do.

And then there’s Posy.  Posy’s reaction to Owen is generally to hightail it in the opposite direction.  Quickly!  Owen is solicitous of her – or rather, he became so once he heard me calling her Posita.  His version of “Posita” is po-di-TAH, and he likes to shout this at high decibels.  He’ll call po-di-TAH when it is time for her dinner, or when he is just wondering where she is.  Needless to say, she does not come running.

The name’s Posy.

But you don’t call me anything at all, little boy.