Eight years worth of Shiba smiles

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anniversaries, shiba inu

Not to be outdone, Bowdu has a gotcha day anniversary too.

Eight years of this goofy face, and still countless reasons to smile.

Claim to closeness

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anniversaries

I am grateful to be done with conferencing for this academic year. I think the Bows are glad, too.

While on the road, I missed Bowpi’s second Gotcha Day. How has it only been two years? We know her more completely than those countable months.

Yet, she continues to change, to grow bolder, more impish, more complex. Just when I think I know her boundaries, she will press just a little further.

Bowpi jumped up on the ottoman and practically sat down on Bowdu in this picture. This wouldn’t have been possible two years ago. The Bowdu of the past would have nipped her butt before flouncing off in a puff of fur and fury. Even now, he’s prone to complain quite vocally when anyone, human or canine, invades his space. So Bowpi knew there was risk involved when she chose that precise spot. She was trembling hard as she eased down, but never relinquished her desire to be close. That’s all she wanted — to be between Bowdu and me.

The difference now is that she’s willing to insist on her claim to comfort. I think she does so because she is more assured of our capacity to give her what she wants. Someday, that fluffy Shiba butt is going to make a nice Basenji chinrest, especially on a cold winter’s day… maybe a few more years from now.

One year with Bowpi

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anniversaries

It’s Bowpi’s Gotcha Day!

A year ago…

23 March 2010

28 March 2010

… and now.

16 March 2011

Bowdu, the wonder years

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anniversaries, birthdays, dogster

Photo taken 4 April 2005

Today is the day that we have arbitrarily designated as Bowdu’s birthday.

Truth is, we don’t know. We just counted back from how old the puppy mill breeder/broker told us he was, and decided that January 20th, 2005 was a pretty good day to call his birthday. We have reason to think he’s actually a couple weeks younger than what we were told, but we have no documentation whatsoever of his origins.

I’ll have more to say on that some other time. I have a lot I could and will say about Bowdu’s origins, over time.

Oh, how little we knew back then, but how much love we had to give…

For now, I present a trip down memory lane. The above is the first daytime photo we took of Bowdu, the morning after we brought him home. Heh, he still sleeps with that blanket.

Sometimes I still get a chuckle out of Bowdu’s Dogster blog, which I started when we were still living in Taiwan. There’s less than two dozen entries there, but it hits some of the highlights between 20 June 2005 and 14 January 2008 (I don’t really count the two entries from 2010, because that’s when dog blogging migrated over here). It was Dogster Diary of the Day at some point too, but Bowdu, being the fickle Shiba that he is, chose not to acknowledge the compliment, whatever day that was.

As much as the Doggy Daddy and I both like to “act out” the internal monologue of our dogs, I couldn’t got accustomed to writing from his perspective. Writing in my own voice is so much more comfortable for me.