Tonight one Cheyenne mystery solved: lately she has been pawing and pawing and pawing at me. Persistently. Sometimes my head, sometimes smashing my hand underneath her body. Although this sounds like a dominance thing, I must first explain that pawing is Cheyenne’s one way of communication with humans. Which, frankly sucks, because there is really no way to tell if she has to go out, if someone took her toy or bone or looked at her sideways, if she wants a treat, etc. She doesn’t vary the way that she paws, it simply means that she has something she desperately needs to tell me and she is so frustrated she can’t just speak in my language. Instead she is forced to just reiterate, Mom! Mom! Mom! with her perfectly groomed, razor sharp claws, until I finally either lose my patience and yell at her to lay down, or I miraculously telepathically figure out what the issue is. A side note: the other dogs–the former angel dogs–have also taken to pawing when they want something. This, by the way, is not how learning between the dogs was supposed to happen. Why does the bad influence always prevail? That is contemplation for another day, back to the recent resurgence of pawing. Lately she has been taking my spot when I leave it, so more and more its beginning to seem like a dominance issue after all. Tonight, I got up and came back and there she was curled up in my chair on my blanket and I had an epiphany to the point I burst out laughing. She wasn’t trying to take my spot. She wanted my afghan. She loves afghans. She has simply been trying to tell me that she wanted a blanket. I got hers (yes, she has her own afghan) from the bedroom and spread it out on the ottoman. She immediately leaped into the new spot, made the perfect nest, and curled up happy as a clam. And now as I write this, somehow she has both of the blankets, is passed out and snoring with her body pressed against mine and dreaming I can only presume, of chasing rabbits and shrews. What would life be without this crazy brown-spotted dog?