Get Your Own Box

Ripley the Beagle boy wants very desperately to sample the Cheez-It crackers, but his daddy is under strict orders from the resident photographer (she who must be obeyed) to "not give him people food". Ripley loves his daddy, and after six full days in his new "forever" home, he has very quickly bonded with me, and leaps into my lap and the tail never stops wagging.

He is very well behaved, and whoever lost him must have taught him to behave on a leash, as he will sit quietly around other dogs if you shorten the lead and tell him to stay. He is not a vocal beagle, unlike our dear Millie (now in beagle heaven), and only barks when we come home and let him out of his crate. He goes into the crate every night with little urging (a cookie thrown in first, and a gentle shove of his beagle butt to close the door). Once inside, he settles down and does not whine or complain. Now, this is not to say he spends a lot of time in the crate, as in the week we've been privileged to have him with us, he's only been alone in the house for one hour today during church. My wife gave me implicit instructions on how to secure him - apparently wives think husbands are brain dead around adorable beagles - and he went into the crate at 9:50, and came out at 10:40, to much beagle howling as he was SO happy to see me. I ditched the sermon and sneaked out while the congregation was singing the second verse of a three verse hymn. We live all of two minutes from church, till the new church is finished anyway.

Ripley apparently spent some time in cages earlier in his life, before being picked up by Hillsborough County, and ultimately turned over to Tampa Bay Beagle Rescue. We know that because of a mystery solved by TBBR volunteer Madeleine who explained a curious behavior. Ripley, like other dogs who are caged a lot, is not only an "optimum pooper" (like the pet food commercial), but a "unique pooper" at least to our experience after five prior beagles who were pretty much conventional when it came to relieving themselves. Ripley backs up to a tree, placing front paws firmly on the ground, pushing his rear legs higher on the trunk, then proceeds to "push off" with his bomb load. He's also done this on a bed of closely planted flowers, a cable TV box, a broad leafed tropical plant, and numerous low bushes. At first, we suspected his prior owner didn't believe in picking up after his dogs, so trained them to avoid grassy lawns and find clever hiding places. Madeleine solved it with a simple answer - "crated and caged dogs don't want to poop where they're contained, so they 'expel' their leavings OUTSIDE the cage".

Well, Ripley has given me a new phrase to replace "go piss up a rope". But look at his picture sitting in the back of the Corvette as we drove the 60 miles from his original foster home to our place. He went right in back, did not complain, and has for all trips thereafter taken the "crew chief" position behind the pilot and co-pilot. One week with my boy Ripley, and joy has replaced the grief of losing our girl Millie. Some people just have to have a dog. Like the tee-shirt said "he's not my pet, I'm his human".