BoBo

This is my dog, BoBo. It's not the original name in his papers, but BoBo stuck, and BoBo he will forever be. Because he's a purebred poodle (a small standard) I suppose I should spell it BeauxBeaux, but he's not in the least bit pretentious and neither am I.

I did a lot of careful research before I bought him 2 1/2 years ago. (I only wish I could say that concerning the second dog, a small demon-posessed malti-poo. Don't ever buy a malti-poo. Do yourself a favor and buy a large, inbred gerbil first and feed it crack so that you can get an idea about what you're getting into. I am seriously considering getting rid of the malti-poo, and I am crazy about animals. That's how bad she is.)

I had always thought purebred poodles were spazzy and difficult. I was so very wrong. He is extremely smart, knows how to spell, is highly interractive and playful, and very loyal and cuddly. He is truly another child in this family. But he also is neurotic.

One day we were taking the dogs for a walk the day after a road crew had gone through and re-marked the roads in white paint. I live in an urban area, so I'm talking about simple dividing lines, nothing fancy. I had the demonic malti-poo, and SaurKid had BoBo.

Suddenly SaurKid was dragged to a halt. "C'mon," I said, "what's holding you up?"

"BoBo won't move!" he said, surprised.

"Oh, let me try," I said, grabbing the leash and tugging. BoBo was stopped dead and the more I tugged, the more he angled back. Who woulda thought a dog could dig into asphalt like that??? Finally, with SaurKid pushing and me pulling, we were able to get him to move. He jumped up and skittered like an old maid over the new white line.

"Wait a minute," I said, "I think he's scared of the line!"

We tried to get him to walk over it again, and the same thing happened. BoBo had the most amazing hangdog expression this time. We laughed so hard until... we realized the entire road was full of white lines. It was a long walk.

Given time, BoBo finally overcame his fear of white lines. Since then, we've discovered that he's terribly frightened of anything that is normally not in his path. This means that you could place a business card in the hallway, and he wouldn't be able to pass it. When the kitchen was re-tiled, he couldn't step onto the new floor for a week. But now he has a new fear (among others).

BoBo sleeps with me at night (he's a very clean dog), and my bed was always very high off the ground, with drawers underneath it for clothing. We always had the same bedtime routine: I would give him a quick once-over to make sure he was his usual immaculate self, and toss him up on the bed. In the morning, I'd pick him up and place him on the floor so that he could go outside.

We recently overhauled the bedroom and lowered the bed onto a standard mattress frame. Last night was our first night in the lowered bed. I got into bed and patted the covers. "C'mon, BoBo!" I said. BoBo sat there, confused. He had never been able to get up into the tall bed before, and although he now could do so easily, he ran about the bed, looking at it from all angles.

It was quite comical. Here's this dog who could now easily step onto the bed, and he's running about it helplessly.

Finally, after a great deal of encouragement, he clawed his way up the bed just as you'd see a wolf scrabbling up a sheer cliff. Oh brother.

This morning, I got out of bed and called for him to jump down. He looked at me so helplessly that I gave in and lowered him to the ground, as I always have.

We often prevent ourselves from doing the achievable because we have this preconceived notion that it's not obtainable. BoBo is a classic illustration of this.

I wonder how long it will take for him to figure this out.