My 6th Year with Hopper

These are the things that I have figured out about my dog Hopper in this last year of our being together. I try to get this published every year on the anniversary of him coming to be with me, April 7th 2017.

This year Hopper has figured out how to move through our crowded bedroom when I get ready to go to bed. When I lift up the dog gate at the doorway for him to enter, he goes about 4 feet inside the room. Then after I take my shoes off and put then higher off the floor so I don't have to bend over as far, I move to the foot of the bed and stand. Then he knows to move back to where I was standing initially, and then sits and waits for me to put of my pajamas and plug in my phone by my pillow. Sometimes I have to give him a slight hand gesture for him to know when to move, but I rarely have to do it now, its more of a custom on my part, as he is already in motion as soon as he sees me stop at the end of the bed. Then he waits for me to get into bed and get the covers pulled back to cover the bed before he climbs up onto the bed to lay down.

I have created a nice kennel to house my dogs when I am away on trips or have to work away from home for extended periods of time. The older bigger dog Pepper doesn't seem to mind and is happy when I come home to let him out, but Hopper is veRy vocal and sounds mad and he is rather loud for quite awhile actually barking at me, rather than trying to voice 'words' in his normal way of talk/complaining/verbalizing. It takes him several minutes to get back to his 'normal' self. 

Four For Hopper

 Yea! It's been another year of getting to know and better understand the complex fur being that is my younger dog Hopper, 4 years together total. 

New things, behaviors & things I have learned during our most recent 4th year together.

Hopper prefers to go outside in the front yard all by himself to pee rather than go outside in the backyard with the other dog Pepper. I stand inside with the glass door closed keeping a watchful eye.

Our street route to and from the office downtown is usually the same, and Hopper has learned where the long stretches are in the streets where he can get out of his chair and I can hold him or pet him. If I tell him, “We are coming to a corner.” - I no longer have to include “... so sit down” for him to sit back down. Most of the time it has got shortened to “Here’s a corner” and he’ll sit back down.

We take a lot of trips to Amarillo together and we almost always make our last stop the dog park near the Love’s truck stop on Interstate 40 on the east side of town.

Food: it seems that Hopper doesn’t care for pizza anymore but he still loves spaghetti with a lot of hamburger in it.

He does not like to be left at home and pouts when I get back from downtown. He seems to completely understand short trips, such as when I take the trash to the dumpster, and I'm back in a minute or two. I try to always take him with me unless there is a good reason why he can’t come, such as dangerous outside temperatures. I get griped out veRy loudly when I return home from multi-day trips. He gets veRy loud, barky and sad, whereas the other dog Pepper is always happy-go-lucky & smilingly glad to see me.

New Annoying Habit: If I leave him in the cab of my truck while shopping, sometime I come back to find that SOMEONE decided to lick on my steering wheel.

Hopper and I enjoy our quiet time together on the front porch, with 'Front Porch' being one of his favorite words.

When a police-fire-ambulance siren will go off in the distance, both dogs will begin howling along, and humorously it seems that each dogs tries to outdo the other one in their loud undulating repeating moan, so I will let them go outdoors so they can be loud, joining the neighborhood dogs in chorus. I have learned each dog's howl.

During the late evening I will cut a chew bone in half and give each dog a half. I randomly select which dog gets each half based on whether the minute display of the stove's digital clock is odd or even. If it is odd, then Pepper gets the bone half of my left hand and Hopper get the other one. Even minute digit, its the opposite. But the bone half in my left hand is always given out first. Its all just silly fun with randomness. The dogs react completely different to me handing them a bone. Pepper will stand on his hind legs and joyously grab his immediately. Hopper always spends a couple seconds, at least, sniffing his bone, before accepting it but then drops it immediately on the floor to inspect it for several seconds. I tell him he is a wonderful dog and then he wanders off with his bone. Where do they go? It used to be almost anywhere in the living room but starting in the early spring of this year they both go to the carpeted hallway outside the bathroom.