I will say this about the hound: Once you get to know Rags a little, he becomes very transparent. His actions speak volumes, if you just pay a little attention.
The other day, I took him back over to hang out with the other dog I blogged about recently, and while everything went surprisingly well (there was really only one snapping incident, and my best guess is that it happened over the water bowl), the one problem Rags consistently has at new places is not having a specific place to lay. Here at Chez Liz, Rags has two doggie beds, one in the living room and one in the bedroom, so regardless of which room I happen to be in, he has a homing place. That’s really what it is — when Rags has a specific spot eeked out for him, he gravitates toward it, and even if he’s freaking out, he’ll eventually curl up and go to sleep.
The two times I’ve taken him over to see the other dog, I’ve forgotten to take one of his beds, and so he’s been a little out of sorts when inside the house. The other day, he spent an awful lot of time just wandering around the house aimlessly, looking for a spot.
So, I decided to buy him a new doggie bed for Chez Liz, and donate the smaller of his two Chez Liz beds to the other house. I grabbed the least offensive dog bed I could find at Wal-Mart yesterday, brought it home and laid it on the floor, and I swear, it’s now Rags’s new favorite spot. Last night, I let him lick out my ice cream bowl (one of his great joys in life), and he trotted — didn’t even walk! — back to his new bed the second he felt he’d finished (and, in fact, he left quite a bit in the bowl, what?!?!?!). Rags is fairly obstinate about sleeping within close proximity to me, which is why he has a bed in the bedroom at all, but last night, he relocated to the living room at some point after I fell asleep. haha
I think part of the reason he likes the new one so much is that it’s nice and fluffy, so he can create a really good hole in the middle and feel surrounded. See?