Buster and Prix

Buster and Prix are as much a part of our family as anything else. They had their sibling rivalry when Buster joined us in December 02 as a 5 week old puppy. Briefly, the story goes like this: I was sittin on the floor playin with Buster. Prix walks in, sees me playin with Buster and lights into him. Snarling, gnashing teeth, and devilish growls. With Chows you have to choose your acts of discipline very carefully. They have such an obstinate and stubborn streak that I think they share DNA with donkeys and mules. I never even thought of how I was goin to handle it. I was blazing mad. I grabbed a fistful of hair at the back of her neck and another fistful above her tail and took her to the back door, yelling the whole time. I put her down long enough to pop her on her butt, then picked her up with more fistfuls of hair on either side of her neck and threatened to beat her butt again. Opening the sliding glass door with my elbow, her swingin in the air I very literally tossed her out the door. Did you know that Chows, at least this one and in this case, when flipped ass over tea kettle will land squarely on all four paws? Yup, she did a flip and stuck the landing as well as I've seen any gymnist ever! She wasn't allowed inside the house for the next 3 days. I would take Buster out to her and while playing with him, call her over to us and laugh and play with her too so she would understand that it was a good thing to play with me together and share my attention. We have had absolutely NO problems with her since that little showdown. Since then they are great compadres and cohorts. She is so tolerant of him that if he is pesterin her to romp and play she will get up and play with him. She always starts out kinda stiff and with a look that says, 'I may be playin on the outside but I'm layin down on the inside.' It never takes her but 2 seconds to forget that she didn't want to play in the first place. If she is eatin at the bulk feeder and Buster wants in, all he has to do is yap a coupla times and she moves away to let him eat too. They know what the other is thinkin all the time. They have developed a system together when it comes to protecting their humans. Buster takes the perimeter of the yard or the front door and Prix stays back with the boys. If I'm not in the immediate vicinity of the boys then she paces back and forth from me to them.
Prix was married in to our family when E and I got hitched. I had the opportunity to resuce her from goin to the pound when she was 1 1/2 yrs old. The fact is, she was already supposed to have been dropped off. Her owner had gone on vacation and left her in the backyard. The owner's brother was supposed to have picked Prix up and taken her to the shelter right after the owner left. He did not. Prix was in the backyard without water or food for days. She had already been in numerous fights and had missing molars and other teeth. My aunt found out about this dog and asked my uncle if she could take their Great Dane, Docker, over to see if they would get along. Prix, bein a chow mix, by all means, should have been protective over her yard. On the contrary, she allowed my uncle to climb over the fence and into the yard without movin from her spot. He unlocked the gate and they brought Docker in. There was never aggression shown. Prix just acted as if she did not care at all. There was NO life in her eyes. My aunt couldn't stand to leave her there and so they agreed they would take her home. I happened to be back in Pennsylvania for a sister's graduation at the time. I had been barn manager for Last Chance Ranch Equine Rescue in Quakertown, Pa (www.lastchanceranch.org) for a couple years prior to my move back home to Kansas and I've always had a very big soft spot for animals who have been mistreated and neglected. (So much so that my husband makes me repeat a promise to him every once in a blue moon that I will take in no strays of any kind) Immediately, I said I'd take her. They warned me that she wasn't the prettiest lookin dog and she had a very stand-offish and introverted disposition. She had a look in her eye that was very mistrusting. Her movements were always guarded and stiff. She looked like she could snap and become aggressive at the drop of a hat. My aunt and uncle gave her many baths in the days to follow. They filled up bags upon bags of hair as they brushed and bathed her for the first time in her life. They went through a LOT of Draino unclogging the tub drain. She hardly ever let them pet her. The only places she would stay throughout the day was back in a corner or along the wall where there was no foot traffic. She immediately established herself as top dog in the pecking order with Docker.

I came home about 2 weeks after they had rescued her. When I saw her for the first time my immediate thought was,'She's the ugliest dog I've ever seen. She looks like a starved coyote with mange.' It was hard to picture her lookin like she should've. She was a mere 22 lbs. With her mixed breed she should've been NO less than 30 lbs. In the days that followed she started warmin up to me and within a week she was like a burr on a saddle with me.



It took her about a month recognize that she was safe. She became a very happy dog and you could see the light returning to her eyes.



She went with me everywhere: the store, my work, the lake, etc. She had a nasty habit of bolting out the door when it opened. It took about 3 months to conquer that bolting. She would run and run and run. You could tell she heard every word I screamed down the road at her and the look in her eye was 'you're wastin your time. I ain't stoppin til I'm done so you might as well turn back.' I would follow her in my truck and wait until she wore out enough that she would come to me. Not 3 months after I got her I took her to the lake on an October afternoon. I had brought my college work. She hung around by me on the blanket and swam in the lake while I did my homework. I washed my car at the pump and she was right by my side. After bein there for a while I noticed she kept lookin off down the road and across the cove where we were camped. Every once in a while she'd let off with a low deep growl. I noticed after a while that she was lookin straight at a truck with two men in it. When they got in their truck and started down the road she walked out away from my car by the pump, where I was still washin it, and sat down on the edge of the road. Sure 'nough, that truck took the turn down the road and headed to my car. Prix trotted back to me, circling around me whining, then trotted back out half-way to the road and planted all fours, growlin a low gurgling growl. The truck pulled up about 20 yards from me and the passenger got out on the off side of us. He stood there by the hood and asked me to call off my dog. By this time Prix had been slowly taking steps out to meet him. By this time her lips were in a permanent curl. I tld him, 'nope, I'm not callin my dog off. Obviously she doesn't like y'all so you'd best get back in your truck cuz she doesn't listen to me very well.' He made some excuse about just wantin to visit and I told him I don't visit when my dog doesn't like someone. He got back in the truck and they sat there for a while. Prix was about 15 feet from their truck and had no intention of movin. They finally drove off slowly down the road with Prix doggin their every turn. They got out to the main road and she finally turned around and came back.
Over the past 8 years she has slowly relaxed more and more. It used to be that she wouldn't let anyone pet her and she never stopped growlin at people whether they were in our yard visittin or in our house sittin down. Only in the past coupla years has she decided that sleeping all out on her side in the middle of the hallway at night or the middle of the front room, or even in the middle of the yard is a safe place. If my husband comes home later than usual, or at an odd time, she STILL comes to me and growls. When he is not at the house with me and the boys she never sleeps, never lets her guard down and gives me a warning growl at anything and everything. When E is home she relaxes a lot more.



During the months I was pregnant with our oldest son, and then during my pregnancy with our second son, Prix would nest. She would go into the room we had set up for the arrival of the baby and scratch on the floor. Around and around she'd go. Circling and scratching. She would sleep in the room by herself before the babies came. Before being pregnant she never went into that particular room. After each of the boys came home from the hospital she would lay herself under the crib for a while after we put them down to sleep. For bein a chow she has a tremendous amount of patience with babies-but only up til the time that they crawl. After they start crawlin she makes sure she's out of their way just like she always kept out of my autistic cousins way. From the time that our boys could get a good grip with their hands she has let them pull hair out of her hide by the handful! They grip and rip so hard that she loses her balance.




She just stands there, lickin the skin off their face or givin them a new hair style. One of her favorite things is to find their fingers and toes and mull them around in her mouth, like a catfish does liver, and systematically clean each and every appendage.
Both the dogs are very tolerant of our boys.





Buster has become a great playmate for Wyatt.






Where ever the boys are the dogs have to be there too.




Buster is a typical lab.






'Wait! I'm not done! A little more on this side again!'


He will freeze to death with you outside and he will climb up on the couch with you to watch a movie. He's the best vacuum a mom could have. I NEVER have to charge him up or change his batteries!




When the boys go to bed the dogs take their look-out spot in the hallway between the two bedroom doors. Not that they actually stay awake but they are there as close to their boys as they can be.

Then, as the night goes on, they each take a turn by the front door and then move to the couch. Come mornin, one is usually upstairs by the boys' door and one is on the couch.