Pushy? Moi?

As I reported in an earlier blog, a while back Dieter managed to escape into the neighbors' backyard and visit with his pal, Scruffy. Scruffy is a black and white Cocker Spaniel. And while Dieter seems to like all dogs, big and small, he is particularly taken with Scruffy. "Oh, mom, you wouldn't understand. It's a dog thing," Dieter explains.

Dieter immediately knows when Scruffy is in his yard and races to the back fence. There you'll see Scruffy's little black nose sticking through the fence. Sniff. Sniff, sniff, sniff. Much tail wagging, too. I'm sure they're talking about something important, but I'm not sure exactly what. Again, it's a dog thing, I guess.

The neighbors' son visits occasionally, and we've chatted about Dieter's Great Escape. Yesterday evening I was picking up some stuff by the back fence and Scruffy came charging over to the fence, but looked quite disappointed that it was just a mere mortal there. No buddy Dieter. The son laughed and said: "My parents will say 'where's Dieter?' and Scruffy races over to the fence and starts looking for him." So Scruffy knows the name Dieter goes with the big furry guy on the other side of the fence.

This morning I had Dieter outside and the son and girlfriend asked if they could bring Scruffy over. "We'd like to meet Dieter, too," he explained.

Well, I think Dieter was being, as the vet called him, forward. As in: Hi, you must surely like me, right? Right? Hello? Hello? What's not to like about me? Unfortunately, the way he was expressing himself to Scruffy was by trying to mount him. Or at least straddle him. Poor Scruffy. If you looked up the word "concerned" in a dictionary, you'd see Scruffy's face as the definition of the word. Finally he sat down. Seemed to be the safest thing to do.

No Scruffy, so must play with watering can.

And while Dieter usually loves to meet new people, his reaction to these folks was "Meh. I'd much rather shower Scruffy with my undying love and attention." I even had some tasty treats that usually Dieter can't resist. Nope. He seemed hell-bent on driving Scruffy 'round the twist.
 
Finally I think Dieter stepped on Scruffy, who emitted a yipe. I think he said some things to Dieter that weren't all that polite either. Clueless Dieter persisted: Come on; let's play!! The girlfriend finally gathered Scruffy up, and she just avoided having Dieter try to leap into her arms, too. "Take me with you!"

All seems back to normal this evening. The boys had their nose-to-nose fence greeting and there seemed to be no hard feelings. I think for now at least it's best to have the fence between them. It's like Robert Frost said: Good fences make good neighbors.