Goat

Gonzalo. That's his real name. Pretty pretentious, for a dog. Ludicrous, I'd say. Sounds like you'd baptize a dog "Don Hernandez" or something like that. However when I moved here that was the deal: My spouse adopted my daughter- and that is not a meagre task to embrace- and I adopted his dogs. Or rather they adopted me. I guess if they hadn't he would have repudiated me and sent me back to Douce France? But they did, and so did I. Who wouldn't melt for these creatures? Everything is not idyllic however. Mr B is that cool, goofy, carefree but not troublefree Westy. Always puts himself into trouble, falling in love with my Parisian kitty, for example (see archives for previous posts on this subject) . Gonzalo is another story. Neurotic, manipulative, whining creature. The problem is he decided he was Mama's dog. So when I sit on my armchair, there he is, sitting right on my feet, the wicked creature. When I go up the gangway to the shore, who's constantly in my feet, Goat. That is when I really can feel murder instincts surging in me. When I open the van door, who pretends he can't climb inside on his own, Goat. And he whines, till we're in a hurry, have to go, and finally help him in. And he knows it, the wicked one. Notice that he has no problem at home climbing the sofa, which is higher than the van... For his defense, the poor creature seems to have been somewhat abused in his youth, and on top of that he was castrated, so I guess he's got some excuses for his being an almost constant nuisance. But you know what? every now and then, when for some very temporary miraculous reason he is calm, or when he walks ahead of me, turning his head back every half second to make sure I'm still there,..... I like him, the damn manipulative beast.