My puppy is a creature of habit. Yes, even though she’s five this summer, she’ll always be my little girl, just as surely as I’m still my Daddy’s little girl. After she comes in from her tea she curls up on the same cushion on the sofa every night and snoozes for an hour or so. She’s quite deliberate about it. It’s always the same place and she always eventually moves away to somewhere that suits her better but she just likes to exercise a bit of “I can so I will” over JD.

You see, she’s in JD’s space. She’s sitting next to DM, in other words preventing our superstar boy from being where he wants to be most in the world, next to his Dad. After she’s made her point, she’ll get up, stretch and then move. In the blink of an eye, he will slink into the space she’s vacated and remain there for the rest of the evening. I look up as I type and see him, back along the back of the sofa, head on DMs leg, paws outstretched and a contented, happy look on his face. He’s a patient soul and waits until her need to exert her authority over him has been sated for the day and then spends the remainder of the evening in his own private heaven.

It reminds me of the princess and the pea in an odd sort of way.