post camping trip behavior oddity

We'd taken a 3 day weekend last week and gone camping (see the companion blog http://thecoveredwagon.blogspot.com/). Tug has a crate he sleeps in on camping trips- we don't take his nice, large one due to limited floor space in our tent camper. This is the littler one that normally sits between our recliners in the living room and is his "time out" crate. When he was younger and uncontrollable he'd get popped into there. Now it's used when guests come over so he can be in there with us but not be jumping up on everyone.

When we came home Mama decided to set it behind our recliners instead of between them (which meant I no longer have anywhere to set my drink or the remote- we'd put a tray on top of the crate and used it like a table). Well, where she positioned it was where we've left a cushion for a few months- Tug doesn't like lying down on the laminate floor. So, the first night we're home Tug just walks into the crate (!) and sits down to chew a toy! We did a double take, of course. He won't normally go in except to retrieve a toy. I guess he got so used to spending time in it on the camping trip that seeing it where he usually lounges on a pillow crossed his wires somehow. You could have knocked US over with a feather.

Sultan in the Sun

It's been fairly warm to hot here already but Tug just adores sitting on our southern exposure screen porch. He lounges on his cushion and just dozes until something/someone needs to be barked at... Mama calls it "supervising" and the other day he wore himself out trotting back and forth between the front windows and the screen porch. Mama's left the patio doors open when she can stand it so he gets a little more freedom. He's finally gotten old enough to stay on the porch by himself even with the door closed- as long as he can see you. Before, he wouldn't let the door be closed even if we were visible. I guess the painting of the complex over a few months this winter convinced him that not everyone walking by was an enemy.

Chopped Liver

Yeah, my uncle so conned our Tug into thinking he hung the moon that on the second day when I got home from work I didn't even warrant a greeting...how do you like that? Chief playmate and ear rub provider for almost 3 years and I'm usurped in under 48 hours....

My uncle stayed a week and guess who just moped and moped when he left? Yeah, who's the one he came to then- ha!

An interesting thing happened a day or so after my uncle left. Tug did something we've never seen him do- he "buried" a "bone." Mama got some bone shaped biscuits and Tug didn't eat it right away. He jumped up onto the sofa and "dug" into the cushion- for all the world like watching a dog dig under a fence. Then, he placed the "bone" in the "hole" (crack between the cushions) and "covered it up." What happened was he took his flat, little nose and "pushed" the slip cover around like he was pushing earth over the bone to bury it. He just kept nuzzling it around but couldn't get his bone covered. There was a tremendous sigh and then he pulled the bone from the "hole" and ate it. All the while he was crunching away his ears were down like "oh, well, I guess I just have to get this over with now." What a strange little creature and how odd that we've never seen this behavior before now!