0131B: When Tobie Met Poy-Poy

Some time back, I documented how in many ways, Tobie is a dog. And this realization helped explain a lot of his behavior, revealed some possible points of "exploitation" for me and of course explain a lot of his fears when it comes to dogs. In the 2+ years that we've been together, I've tried to do my part in helping him face his fear of dogs bit by bit. And with the addition of Prince into our little Sietch family, the question of whether or not Tobie could handle dogs would really come to a head.

If you've been keeping up with this blog, then you'll know that as of Saturday, Prince's dog Poy-Poy has become an official resident here at the Sietch. He has acclimated to his new environment rather well and I've been totally enjoying the unique bliss that is being a pet owner again. I'm forever grateful to Prince for trusting us enough to bring his dog here and to allow us to share in Poy-Poy's care.

But there was still the question of Tobie, since he was out of the country over the weekend with his folks. The entire Poy-Poy filled weekend had been without Tobie thus far and it wasn't until his arrival late Monday that we could finally introduce the two to one another.

Now Poy-Poy is normally a quite dog, I've observed, except maybe when he can hear the maintenance folks picking up the garbage from the garbage room near the Sietch. So it was a bit of a surprise to have him barking the moment Tobie entered the door.

Prince and I initially figured that his barking was just his usual eagerness to be part of the action - we normally let him roam the Sietch for as long as one of us is around to watch him. It took a bit of convincing before we could get Tobie to be okay with letting Poy-Poy out. But we got him settled down on the coach and then let Poy-Poy roam but the barking still wouldn't quite stop. We needed to take things to the next level.

I took Poy-Poy in hand, and asked Tobie to pet him. And for a guy who had been deathly afraid of even being near a dog in recent years, I know I was asking for a lot. But Prince and I were right there beside him and reassuring him that Poy-Poy was a nice dog and that everything would be okay once they bonded more. So he reached out and soon Poy-Poy was eager to jump in his lap as he continued to pet the dog.

Before the night was over, Prince and I were overwhelmed to watch Tobie actually issue a few commands to Poy-Poy and try to curb his explorations of other parts of the Sietch. Heck, for some reason Poy-Poy has started to respond appropriately when Tobie tells him to sit or stay when neither Prince nor myself have gotten that far in our training efforts. So yeah, definitely a big thing.

So now this Sietch family has truly gotten a little bigger. And I'm glad to note that Tobie and Poy-Poy are getting along now and perhaps Tobie might be able to train him to do more tricks than Prince and I had expected. I'm really happy things are going this well - I guess it's true that love brings out the best in all of us. And with strength of our love making all four of us (yes, of course Poy-Poy counts, too!) we are all made better, stronger and greater than who we are as individuals.

And of all this I am so very proud.