The old neighborhood – a trip back to the old neighborhood with our dogs

My family and I spent Labor Day with neighbors we had before we moved out of the Cities a couple years ago. At the time, they had no pets of their own, and their two daughters absolutely adored our two dogs and, judging by my dogs’ reaction to hearing the girls’ voices outside, the feeling was mutual. “Katie … Molly …” would send my two dogs hurdling toward the back door, jumping over each other, anxious to be the first one to get petted or chase a ball the girls would throw down the alley. So naturally, when our old friends invited us down, their girls made sure they asked us to bring Katie and Molly along. And one more thing … they had a dog of their very own, and they were excited for us and our dogs to meet.

Now my two dogs have had a clear, unquestioned social hierarchy established for several years. Katie is the undisputed leader of our pack, getting to the food first, getting first dibs on the toy most coveted at the time, and Molly accepts this most of the time. If she ever does mount anything resembling a challenge, she loses. I admit I have not been keeping up with my dog socialization … they rarely leave the house, and it has been awhile since they met a new dog, at least not outside the safety of a kennel at the clinic.

Enter “Benji,” the 85-pound half-greyhound, half-lab by our collective estimation, whose hips and shoulders came approximately flush with the top of the chain-link fence. After exchanging pleasantries with our friends and meeting the lovable Benji, we let him out into his backyard, where I had already deposited our dogs. Within seconds, a rather foreign concept was introduced to my alpha dog Katie, but Molly knew exactly what the score was. Benji tore though the yard after my dogs, with Molly instinctively running toward the house where she curled up on the step, tail tucked, belly to the sky, pretty much in the fetal position. Katie, on the other hand, unaccustomed to any worthy adversaries, stood right there in Benji’s yard, holding one of Benji’s toys in her mouth as if she owned the place. This was a mistake. All I remember after that was the whites of eyes and teeth flashing, hearing some not-so-playful barking and, within a few seconds, Benji had Katie pinned. It took a little more work than with Molly, but he had succeeded in getting Katie in the same submissive position. At this point, all dogs understood each other, our friends gave Benji a time-out, and we sat down to dinner.

We caught up on all types of things, but what amused me most was hearing some Benji stories. My neighbor told me the very instant he finished all his hard work installing the fence, putting the finishing touch on the gate, Benji looked right at him and jumped straight over the gate clearing it be a good two feet! My favorite, though, after witnessing his fury only moments before, was that at the humane society where they picked him out, written on his information sheet under “reason surrendered” read: “Too energetic.”