Dog days of summer...

Something that provides us with endless hours of entertainment is watching the relationship develop between Sequoia and our fuzzy boys. Colleen and I are certainly not alone in having our lifestyles radically altered with the arrival of Sequoia. The dogs have not surprisingly had to make some huge adjustments to their routines and where they fit in the pack these days.

Luckily Sequoia absolutely loves her dogs. She gets frantically excited when she sees them - flailing her arms and legs wildly and letting out very excited belly laughs. Early on we noticed that she would intentionally try to call them if they left the room - squealing to get their attention and then doing her best to interact with them when they came back by to see what all the fuss was about. This was long before it ever occurred to her to do the same thing to get our attention for anything other than primal needs - food, sleep and poop. These days she has started to realize that it can be a little boring if she is in the room by herself and she will fuss to get our attention so we can go back to entertaining her. It is good to feel needed. The dogs however, got this attention early on.

Rogue, our oldest Border Collie, is by far the calmer of our two dogs. He has taken the whole Sequoia thing in stride. He is neither overly concerned nor overly impressed with her. He seems to have a sense of what she is and that he is responsible for keeping her safe, but other than the occasional drive by sniff, he pretty much lets her be her own person.
Yukon our younger Border Collie is our free spirit. I refer to him by a lot of names - Wild Man being the most common - and a friend of ours politely described him as a Feisty Firecracker. I would describe his personality as unbridled joy. Anyway, I had some pretty big concerns about whether or not he could tone things down enough to safely interact with a defenseless baby. Well we do need to monitor the interactions since at 60 pounds he could accidentally cause tremendous damage with one accidental swipe of the paws, but in all honesty it amazes me how drastically he modifies his behavior when he is around Sequoia. He is very gentle and visibly acknowledges that Sequoia ranks higher in the hierarchy of the pack. He obeys when we make Sequoia do the hand motion for sit and he can't wait for her to figure out how to throw the tennis ball that he repeatedly gives to her.

Through all of this, Sequoia is as happy as can be. She really loves her pups and laughs with delight whenever they enter the room. She pets them when they are with in reach and is not above stealing their chew toys when they are sharing a play mat together. Not that we let her chew them, but the fact that Yukon does is one more example of his acceptance of where Sequoia fits in the family.