Favo has a Girlfriend.

Well, this might not be exciting to you, but my bathroom has a sheetrock ceiling and electrical outlets now.

Also, this article on the breed of dog we finally researched may be useful and insightful. I do believe there to be several historical inaccuracies reflected by the writer (which is understandable since he was drunk), but the new dog is proven to be a Mexican Song Dog! Muchas gracias to Joel Warner for doing this important research.

And the new dog has fully settled into his dog personality in our household I think. For now. He is definitely a puppy. He is definitely high energy. He is like how Otterpop was as pup. Like does not stop ever except at night to sleep. Or in the day in the dog run at work, where he has managed to shove into the big dog crate they have as a dog house and sleep in a pile of black dog during the afternoons. Gustavo and Otterpop have their own very rough and tumble hardcore show now and give a whole new definition to Small Fast Kick Your Ass. It's a match. Ruby has moved way down to the bottom of the dog totem pole and gets left out a lot, but I honestly think she is happier there without constant harrassment. She still lives in a crate with Otterpop some of the time, and I seperate Gustavo some of the time so he does not overbond to Pop the Bad Influence.

She is like the Bad Influence Girl of junior high. Who was the first one to smoke and wear lace up tank tops and long ratty sweater coats and started the dragging the ends of bell bottoms in the dirt fad and 11 year olds wearing platform sandals. She is the one who started smoking pot first and all of a sudden had a million boy friends who were the guys everyone called the Dirt Bags. But who is not so bad that she fails out of school, she is the one that in the end manages to get the straight A's and goes to Harvard or something if it was the Lifetime movie. But who just cannot stay out of trouble.

Otterpop is actually a good influence in some ways because she always stays in my sight line. And is very much in my power. But who is always going to find a way to get into trouble and drag someone down with her. And now she has a sidekick who is a wild child puppy and god knows what they will figure out together. Right now it is destroy the stuffed toys and kill them all and attack eachother while running fast.

She has taken to once or twice a week, somehow climbing out of her dog run, which entails climbing a wire wall like a monkey. (Contrary to what Joel Warner may tell you, I do not put up hot wire to fence the dogs in, even Otterpop.) And sneaking down to the arena when I am riding and silently placing herself in a down outside the fence and hiding there. And watching me ride then wanting to follow me back up to the barn. Which is actually what I trained her to do as a pup at the old place. Except I had thought she was retrained to stay in a pen. She just wants to default back to the old ranch dog life which was more as a helper ranch dog, which I think is the cattle dog in her. Poised to wait outside the ring, and kick any horse ass that gives me grief.

Ruby, being a terrier, is the perfect ranch dog type too because she has no interest in horses and used to be content to roam the property killing gophers. Now she just stalks foot trimmings after the shoer has been there and enjoys laying in the dog pen. She may or may not mistake the hoof trimmings for the Mexican French Toast eggs, but there is little we can do about this now.

Gustavo has no ranch dog traits. He is fine with the horses now as long as they keep a little distance from him. If he's laying in the barn aisle and one walks by, he needs to back off where the other dogs will just lay there and let the horses step around them. He just wants to either lay in the dog pile or take walks with the kids. Pierre, my horse shoer, has some big Beauceron dogs. They are big french attack herding dogs. His wife breeds standard poodles. His toddler loves Gustavo to no end and walks him around on a leash calling him Favo. And screaming Sit at him like she sees her dad do. In french. So maybe Gustavo will end up trilingual. So that's the kind of ranch dog he is. A leash walking kid dog. A singing Mexican Song dog. I cannot wait to find him his costume! Viva del colores de la Bamba!