Sibling Rivalry

The dogs are finally asleep. For one brief shining moment – peace reigns.

They seem to be developing the love-hate relationship of all siblings. When they are tired and sleeping, they cuddle together in that Hallmark card schmaltzy way. But when I come home from work it’s all-teeth-bared sibling rivalry as they vie for my attention. As Grace chomps down on River’s ears, the most tender part of this skin, he yelps and gives me a look that seems suspiciously familiar. It’s one other dogs have given me when a new puppy, or adoptee, came into the house. It says “why did you think this was a good idea?”

When my first Golden, Finn, was a year old, we decided to get another dog. Finn just seemed to be a dog that needed a playmate and it was 1986, long before the days of doggy daycare. Not that as graduate students, we could have ever afforded doggy daycare! Bruce’s family had always had Border Collies, and so we went to look for a Border Collie pup. Which was definitely our first mistake.

We were living in Urbana, IL, at the time, and so, we found an ad in the paper and drove out west of town to find the farm that was selling puppies. Flat fields stretched in every direction with huge John Deere tractors preparing the ground, or already planting corn and soybeans. Each farm house was visible for miles ahead, a lone white house with a few outbuildings and silos popping up on the flat horizon. Each small town we drove through, following the directions I’d scrawled on a piece of paper, had a grain silo.

When we finally found the place, it sat back from the road aways and so we slowly drove up the long drive heading to a small house with barns and kennels scattered around. A woman came out to greet us.

“You’re interested in a border collie pup?” she asked pitching her voice over the cacophony of barks and howls. “This way,” she waved her hand for us to follow, as we headed out across the lawn to a cluster of kennels under a grove of trees. The noise grew louder as we approached a row of homemade kennels, woven wire fencing stretched across four-by-four posts. It was then, I saw the source of the howling.

The first two kennels were empty. The third had a small dog house in the back from which a female Border Collie and her clutch of puppies came out. And the fourth, right next door, housed the biggest canine I’d ever seen, who looked suspiciously like a wolf.

“Is that…” I pointed.

The woman nodded, going up to the kennel and sticking her hand through to pet the animal. “A wolf hybrid. We are grading up. They are three-quarters wolf now. Do you want one? I’ll be breeding them soon.”

The wolf-cross stuck its nose down to sniff through the fencing at the Border Collie pups. Some of them ran to the gate toward us, but one little female went up to the wolf and growled. The huge male wolf, put his tail between his legs and backed away from the fence. The female Border Collie pup, then turned and came running up to us, tumbling over her legs and rolling toward the end. Which is how we ended up with Piper, Finn’s new little sister. And that was probably our second mistake.

On one of the first days Piper was with us, the little black and white furball couldn’t sit still. Bruce and I were working in the yard while Finn lay on the front stoop trying to enjoy the breeze and sunshine. Piper, circled him at full speed, barking and yipping, her rapid yap moving as fast as her little legs ran.

Finn, fifty times her size, turned his head away from her, only to have her zoom around and come at him from the other side. He lifted his chin up, trying to hold it higher than she could reach. The look he gave me didn’t require telepathy to discern. He decidedly did not believe he needed a companion. At least not the one we’d brought home to him.

“She’s going to herd you up,” I laughed.

Piper giving up on getting Finn’s head, raced around the other way. Her short legs couldn’t keep up with the speed she hurled her body forward. She toppled over and rolled toward Finn, her roly-poly body spinning across the stoop.

Finn didn’t miss his chance. As Piper rolled toward him, he lifted his front leg up and set it back down right on top of her. Pinned to the ground, she yapped and squirmed her four legs paddling madly to get out from underneath Finn’s leg. He ignored her and lay his head back down, finally closing his eyes and shutting out the sound of her sharp little barks.

Grace, is a little big for River to pin down with his front paw. But, when I come home and am trying to give them both attention, while keeping them from using their teeth on each other, I watch River turn his back end toward Grace. He maneuvers his rear into position and begins to lower his it, determined to sit on her. So far, Grace has proven to quick for him to squash her with his butt. He keeps trying though, because sibling rivalry is pretty much universal in any species.