2012 March « Love and a Six-Foot Leash

I’m gonna let you in on a little secret, friends. There are a lot of reasons I decided to keep my Snickerdoodle, including our matching tails:

And the way he lets me blame him for my handsome devil antics:

But there is one special thing that I love most of all. When I do this:

He will often do this:

You see, hardcore snuggling is my very biggest specialty, and when a boy’s gotta get his snuggle on, he doesn’t want any brothers of his getting in the way. The Dude likes to snuggle too, but nothing like me. We’ve had other mega-snugglers in our house before, and although I am a very good sharer of attention, I do occasionally get tired of having to move over and let the other dog bask in half of the love. Sometimes a Chick just needs all of that love for himself!

So sometimes the Dude and I co-snuggle with visitors or mama and dad, and sometimes he scoots off to his own frog-dog spot on the floor and lets me have the lovin’ all to myself.

Mama says she always thought that if she adopted another dog to be my sibling, that the new dog would have to be just as much of a lapdog as I am. But she says that she now realizes she was wrong. Even though she loves lap-snuggling dogs very much, she had to take *my* preferences into consideration too — with me being an Elderbull and all.

Mama says it was a big day for her, when she realized what makes the right match for a family: it has to be the right dog for the people, but it has to be a good fit for the Chicken, too.

Want to adopt your very own Doodlebug? Check out Love-A-Bull’s sweet adoptable dogs here!

Even though the Dude promised us that he loved road trips (the only one in his recent memory being the one in which Love-A-Bull sprung him from jail in the Dallas/Ft Worth area and brought him to Austin), his car-riding performance this weekend proved otherwise.

About an hour into our drive into the Hill Country, the Dude started looking a big queasy and nervous, and before we knew it, we were pulled over on the side of the highway, cleaning up that morning’s breakfast, a big helping of grass, and some slime from the brand new floor of grandpa’s brand new Buick SUV. Oops.

After that incident, a little walk around the grassy shoulder, and a dog switcheroo (in which Dude moved to my lap and Chick moved to the dog bed on the floor), all was well.

Another 45 uneventful minutes, and we arrived at the LBJ Ranch and Museum. The boys enjoyed the audio CD-led driving tour of the immense property, and loved the sights and smells on the walking tour of the Texas White House grounds even more.

Unfortunately (or fortunately?) the weather turned windy and rainy just as we arrived at our destination, so the boys spent much of their vacation snuggled up with each other inspiring songwriting:

And wooing the Turkey-man into feeding them sausages and cheese:

While us humans braved the elements, climbing the slippery, pink granite dome of Enchanted Rock in the foggy drizzle.

The Dude was pleased to find that he was in good company on our rental house’s property — in the surrounding fields, he found plenty of Longhorn friends with beautiful coats to match his own ruddy brown. Every time we went for a walk, he tried to playbow to them to show them that he is not a threat: