{"id":180,"date":"2015-06-29T00:37:58","date_gmt":"2015-06-29T04:37:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/?p=180"},"modified":"2015-06-29T00:37:58","modified_gmt":"2015-06-29T04:37:58","slug":"swashbuckling-bo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/?p=180","title":{"rendered":"SWASHBUCKLING BO"},"content":{"rendered":"
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My latest book, HALLEY,<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Awarded 2015 Jefferson Cup Honor for Historical Fiction. Available at: NewSouth Books:\u00a0www.newsouthbooks.com\/halley and Amazon<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Our late Boxer, Bo, was very territorial.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t put up with other
\nanimals in his domain. He considered the Ark Veterinary\u00a0 Clinic to be
\npart of that domain–especially if the offending animal happened to be
\na cat or a rottweiler.\u00a0 Before I resorted to a halter harness for
\ncheck-ups and learned to keep both hands on the leash, he broke away
\non two different occasions and tried to take on rottweilers who
\noutweighed him by half.<\/p>\n

With turtles, I think it was curiosity, instead of animosity, that
\nmotivated Bo.\u00a0 Time after time, we caught him chewing on box turtles
\nhe had found in the yard or woods.\u00a0 It did no good to hand carry them
\nto the edge of the yard or down into the woods.\u00a0 He would go find them
\nand begin munching again.\u00a0 The only solution was to put them into the
\ncar and drive them a mile or so down the road and release them.
\nFortunately, save for one exception, the turtles were too large for
\nhim to inflict fatal injuries on.<\/p>\n

Thank goodness, Bo was more than willing to share his territory with
\ngrandchildren.\u00a0 In fact, he allowed grandchildren to tug his ears,
\npull his tail, climb on his back and inflict all kinds of other
\nindignities.\u00a0 By the time the third grandchild came along, Bo was
\ngetting to be a senior dog with arthritis and missing teeth, and yet
\nhis patience with little ones was still endless.\u00a0 He tried to join
\ngames of tag and hide and seek with Benjamin and the grandkids.\u00a0 One
\nday he even tried to get into a plastic sword fight.\u00a0 When he
\naccidentally got slapped by a sword, Bo fell to the ground, and rolled
\nover with paws in the air.\u00a0 This was such a hit that he \u201cplayed dead\u201d
\nseveral times during every sword fight from then on.<\/p>\n

As brave as he was when fighting off intruders or attacking
\nrottweilers, there were some things Bo feared.\u00a0 One was his doghouse.
\nHis doghouse was in the breezeway of the cottage next to our house.
\nBenjamin had insulated it and installed two one hundred watt bulbs for
\nheat when needed.\u00a0 A thick curtain over the doorway kept out cold wind
\nand a cushioned carpet gave him a soft place to sleep.\u00a0 He slept in it
\nfor the first week or so when cold weather arrived.\u00a0 Then, quite
\nsuddenly, he wanted nothing to do with it.\u00a0 We set his supper dish
\ninside, thinking that would convince him.\u00a0 But no, he would merely sit
\na foot or so away and whine.\u00a0 Then he would go outside into the
\nattached fenced enclosure and bark toward the house while shivering
\npitifully.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, freeze, you big coward!\u201d Benjamin told him the first several
\nnights, but as the weather got colder and I began to talk of allowing
\nhim into the kitchen, Benjamin relented and went out to do what I
\ncalled \u201cDa-da and Bo bonding.\u201d\u00a0 He crawled into the doghouse and
\npulled Bo in with him.\u00a0 While Bo shivered with fear, Benjamin pointed
\nout that nothing was hurting Bo.\u00a0 Bo was safe.\u00a0 The doghouse was safe.
\nAfter a week of Da-da and Bo bonding, Bo surrendered and began using
\nthe doghouse alone.\u00a0 However, the next winter, it was the same problem
\nall over again and required the same solution.\u00a0 We never figured out
\nwhat Bo\u2019s fear was.<\/p>\n

Bo\u2019s last year of life, he had cancer, and we gave him pain pills
\nevery day.\u00a0 And yet, he never lost his cheerful disposition.\u00a0 He
\ndidn\u2019t like swallowing pills, so we wrapped them in bread–until he
\nfigured that out and began spitting out pills.\u00a0 Then we crushed the
\npills into canned dog food, until he quit eating the medicated meat.
\nThen we began stuffing the pills into a weiner half.\u00a0 The day we knew
\nwe could put off the inevitable no longer we fed him the remaining three
\nweiners\u00a0 just outside the vet clinic.\u00a0 He was happy and
\nsmiling when we walked in.\u00a0 He greeted the clinic workers like always
\nand looked around to see if there were any rottweilers around.\u00a0 In the
\nexamination room I held him in my arms while they gave him the
\ninjection, and it was all over in seconds.\u00a0 It\u2019s been three years
\nsince that sad day, but I continue to miss him, and I still haven\u2019t
\nbeen able to get another dog.\u00a0 But when I do, I know it will be a
\nBoxer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My latest book, HALLEY, Awarded 2015 Jefferson Cup Honor for Historical Fiction. Available at: NewSouth Books:\u00a0www.newsouthbooks.com\/halley and Amazon Our late Boxer, Bo, was very territorial.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t put up with other animals in his domain. He considered the Ark Veterinary\u00a0 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=180"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":181,"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180\/revisions\/181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}