Tisen and Twiggy decide to raise their heads long enough for a photo op

Over the holidays we had one of our favorite guests–Twiggy.  Twiggy is also a favorite of Tisen’s.

Some say that dogs have the intelligence of about a 2 year old human.  But if flirting techniques are any indicator, I’d say Tisen performs at the level of a 7 or 8 year old.  His favorite way to get Twiggy to pay attention to him is to stick a toy in her face and then make growly noises at her.  It’s like the little boy who keeps pulling a little girl’s hair.

Twiggy is the master of hard-to-get.  She ignores Tisen unless she feels like demonstrating that females are not the weaker sex.  She nips at Tisen’s legs when she wants to engage.  He invariably turns and mouths her neck.  She body-blocks him, using her height to her advantage, and then reaches around to grab hold of him with her mouth and knock him to the ground.  She often flips him completely onto his back.

Tisen, like the 7-year old human, is grateful for any attention Twiggy gives him.  He’s happy to wrestle with her even if he loses.  I sometimes imagine he loses on purpose so Twiggy will like him more.  But, in reality, Twiggy is better at wrestling.

The two of them bound toward one another like a reuniting Heathcliff and Katherine after a separation.  But, more like one of those funny commercials, Twiggy invariably switches direction at the last second and runs to me instead of Tisen.  This makes Tisen doubly jealous–both his favorite canine and his favorite human paying attention to someone else.  But, he can’t be too jealous–he loves us both.

Every time Twiggy comes to stay, she and Tisen seem to get a little cozier.  They went from taking turns sleeping on the sofa while the other slept on the floor, to each choosing an opposite end of the sofa, to now curling up together in the same spot.  Sometimes, the spot is me.  I wish I’d figured out how to take pictures of this–they piled up on top of me like I was part of the furniture.  At one point, Tisen was literally straddling Twiggy while she was laying in my lap.

Tisen lifts his head from Twiggy’s back when he sees my camera

Making a puppy pile seems to be quite comfortable for them.  As for me, I seem to end up with bruises from foot steps, sharp elbows, and hard heads.  But, I have to admit, it’s so cute that I don’t discourage this behavior.

Another change has been the stealing of beds.  Each dog wants to be in the other dog’s bed.  But, as soon as the other dog is in a bed, that’s the one the other dog wants.  This time around, they eventually shared a bed.

I’m not sure I was supposed to let them sleep together, but I figured they were old enough to make up their own minds.  Besides, they’re old enough that all they wanted to do was sleep.

Tisen and Twiggy stopped fighting over the bed and decided to share it