A boy and his dog

When John and I got married I started hounding (haha) him for a dog. At the time, we were renting a townhouse that did not allow pets, so it was mostly a pipe dream. About six years ago we purchased our condo and I started looking for a dog. Since we were both working, we decided it would be best if we didn't have to house break a puppy. We searched the Atlanta Pet Rescue website and fell in love with a little beagle name Linus. Unfortunately, so did the rest of Atlanta. We filled out the forms and meet with the organization, who ultimately decided Linus wasn't the dog for us. Strange, I don't remember going through all that when we decided to have a baby. Anyway, a few weeks later, we found Clarice and she came to live with us. At first she was very timid and she has always had a lot of anxiety, but with all of her flaws, she is part of our family. Much to her chagrin, we had a baby. Clarice was about 5 years old when Hollis was born, so well past the puppy stage. At first this was not a problem. Hollis mostly laid around and ate, which fit in well with her plans. But as they both aged, the differences in their mutual expectations began to become apparent. He LOVES her, he told me she was his best friend. On the other hand, Clarice has a mild indifference toward him, John is her best friend. Hollis is now 3 and Clarice is 8. If they were children this would be a big age difference, but since Clarice is about 57 in people years, she could be his grandmother. She has always been very patient with him and we have never had any problems with her behavior, however, you can tell that she is just barely tolerating him. Often we will hear her let a huge doggy sigh when he leaves the room. You see, in Hollis's mind, Clarice is one of those young, active dogs he sees on TV and he wants her to play with him constantly. In reality, Clarice prefers to spend the majority of the day sprawled out on our couch. Throughout the day you can hear Hollis yelling, "Clarice, come here". She never goes to him, so eventually I get tired of hearing him call her and take her into the room. Then he wants her to sit and stay with him, which means shutting the door and that makes her nervous (see above re: anxiety). After a few minutes I will go rescue her and inevitably she will be sitting right in front of the door, starring at it like she is willing it to open and with a look on her face that clearly says, please save me from him. Through all of this, he is not deterred, she will play with him. Until she does something he doesn't want her to do, then all bets are off and he wants nothing to do with her. You know, some horrible doggy sin, like sniffing his animals or stepping over the railroad track. It is a delicate balancing act. Every night at bedtime, Hollis asks me to stay in his room for a minute and then to send in Daddy. The other night when John went in to stay goodnight, Hollis was almost asleep and said to John, "Send in the dog", she went begrudgingly.

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Hey, don't forget to send me your baking ideas. You don't have to send the whole recipe, just an idea and I can find a recipe. Next week's Mix it up Monday is dependant on you!