Been There, Done That: Like dog, like dog

Our Beagle Boy Cletus seems to be more and more like his “big brother” Duke all the time, even though the two never actually met. Dukie crossed the Rainbow Bridge about six months before Cletus’ Gotcha Day.

Dukie had a bad habit of drink, drink, drink, hack, hack, hack. Cletus has added a new dimension by finishing it off with what sounds like him horking up a turtle. Cletus has mastered the speed bump impression, even though he’s only half the size of Duke. Dukie was able to block an entire path through the house with little to no planning just by laying down somewhere. Cletus has added a little finesse. He has to place his body just right so we have to step over him on every pass through the kitchen. He clogs up the living room by angling himself between the couch and chair.

With Duke, we assumed it was just an attention getter. You always knew he was there. If he napped in the shoe closet, we might forget all about him.

Cletus doesn’t have that option, as we use the shoe closet for storage now. Cletus is much more demanding of attention than Dukie ever was. I rub him up a bit when I get home from work every day, but if I think I’m going to get my 10 puzzle piece limit all at once, I can forget it. He runs his nails down the back of my leg, refusing to be a “puzzle orphan.” I go through the list of what he needs — food, water, outside, treats (which he greedily accepts), but no, what he really wants is some good old-fashioned attention. A good 10 minutes or so will hold him over for a while.

Sort of. For the most part, he still goes everywhere I go. Mostly we meet in the doorways, with one of us coming and one of us going. Although, the other day, he was matching me step for step — on the steps. I stopped, so did he — on the same step. No questions asked. He didn’t move again until I did. Finally, he’s learning. Only took him 10 years.

He’s been sleeping hard lately. We came home from the store the other day after only being gone about 45 minutes. The sound of the car woke him, but he wasn’t coherent enough to know we were home. He stayed upstairs and from the kitchen we heard the most pitiful, sorrowful wail. It was his “woe is me” song, emanating his despair on how desperately alone he is in this world. As I said, we were gone about 45 minutes. Apparently, his separation anxiety hasn’t improved in the past 10 years.

His overly dramatic reaction to sneezes hasn’t improved, either. As I age, my sneezes seem to be getting worse — they come from my toes and are far more forceful than ever before. If Cletus happens to be in the vicinity when a sneeze slips out, he jumps like a cannon just went off, flips me the paw and stomps off to look for a safer location.

One thing that hasn’t changed in the past 10 years, is his love for car rides. In the off-season of the campground, about the only rides he gets is to the vet. Harsh. Now that camp is open for the summer, he’s going to get lots of rides to and from and lots of walks — his other absolute favorite. At 12 3/4 years old and a little on the plump side, you would think he wouldn’t be interested, but he races along, he can’t wait to get to the next smell. Old and fat, but always a Beagle.