So, OK, the Lesser Weevil has been in my increasingly battered, chewed and pee-bedewed household for… oh, my, has it been two months now? How the time flies when you are having fun. Other casualties include a couple of rosebushes, most of the border planting, the space where a small lawn used to be (I have kissed off any possibility of there ever being one there again and resigned myself to paving it all with limestone flagstones and gravel), my gardening hat, a long length of garden hose, three window screens, and the sliding screen door to the back porch, and other stuff too long and depressing a list to think about.

However the Lesser Weevil’s socialization progresses… somewhat erratically, but it is progress. I look at all the stuff that she could chew, trash, dig, crap on and otherwise demolish— but hasn’t yet— and I have reason for hope. After all, she only knocked me down three times last week, during the morning run, and this week she hasn’t managed to do it once. There has been only one puddle on the floor in the morning this whole week; kicking her outside for half an hour in the evening just before we go to bed, and letting her out as soon as I get up has paid off. The chain leash is working well, and she does pay attention when I snap the leash and halti. She sits patiently to have the whole contraption put on, before her walk in the morning, but I really don’t know that she is grasping this whole guard—dog concept. She loves people, and frolics up to them, eager to be petted and admired. Last week I was admiring some renovations being done to the outside, and the inside of a house up the street. It turns out the owners were doing more than just replacing the garage door with a bay window and new front door: the inside of the house was being entirely re-done. I stopped to admire, and get a card from the construction firm, and the work-crew supervisor very kindly offered to hold Weevil’s leash so I could look at the work being done on the inside. Blondie and I suspect that in the event of any danger or threat, Weevil will be cowering behind us.

My neighbor Judy reminded me about dogs being pack animals at heart. They live for the pack, run with the pack, play with the pack, curl up and sleep with the pack. In casting their lot with us humans, all of that affection and loyalty is transferred to humans, as their pack leader, or other members of the household. And thus the Weevil’s overflowing fountain of love and devotion has focused on us, on Blondie and I… and those others in the household, the lesser members of the new pack, but members who are above her in the hierarchy and often above her, physically. That is, the cats.

There is an amusing dynamic going on here. The Weevil’s self-identity as a dog is somewhat fluid. It is likely that she, in fact, sees herself as some sort of over-sized, barking cat. She spends a great deal of energy in trying to get them to play with her, she has tried on several occasions to climb up onto one of the favored cat-perches in the house (the back of the chair and the back of the sofa), she responds to the cats’ favored toy, a tuft of pink feathers at the end of a string and wand. She vies with the cats to be closest to Blondie or I… there is always at least one of the cats orbiting around us. She would sleep on our beds, too, but I—and the cats refuse to let her go that far.

The cats response to the Weevil is mixed; none of them is the least bit afraid of her, and only Little Arthur (AKA “El Blob”, who checks in at 16 pounds and is so fat that he is entirely circular when he plops down on the floor) is actively hostile. Henry VIII and Morgie, as the senior ranking cats are lordly and indifferent. She rates a hiss and a dismissive swipe of the paw when she tries to get them to play with her. They stalk off towards their refuge in Blondie’s room. But Sammy the Gimp, and Percival are recent additions, and relatively junior, and permit an astonishing degree of familiarity. Percival allows her to nuzzle his flanks, and to lick and even gum his ears, head and paws. Sammy will let her nuzzle, not quite so sloppily. They both bop her on the muzzle and head with their paws— claws lightly unsheathed— when it gets too much. Eventually, I think, they might curl up and sleep contentedly side by side, especially when the weather is very, very cold.

But I don’t think Weevil will ever, ever learn to use a litter-box. Damn.