Bluedog was laying in the middle of the cream-colored rug in the bedroom of his new apartment, his back legs stretched straight out behind him, munching gleefully on a toilet paper roll as Mama sat at her computer working. She pulled the headphones off her head, reached across the desk and flipped a switch, watching the big screen change from the work desktop to swirling ribbons, as her personal laptop took over. Pushing back from the desk, she reached down to pat the big black and white dog. "All done!” she said aloud, “Is it dinners time Bluedog?" He responded by jumping up and placing his paws on her lap, the full eighty-five pounds of him shoving the chair back against the desk. "Get off of me, you big ox!" she said shoving him backward. Obligingly, he plopped back onto the floor, dancing from foot to foot expectantly as she gathered herself together.

It was dusk, and through the single, open window Mama could hear the cicadas singing from the many trees that surrounded them in this new, little garage apartment on her brothers’ property that they had just moved into. She could only feel a slight, warm breeze wafting in. "Gonna be a hot night boo." She said as she got up and walked the twenty or so steps to the tiny kitchen area with the big dog following close behind, his wet nose bumping the back of her leg from time to time to hurry her. Humming as she opened a can of dog food Blue sat with his long, meaty tail thumping happily against the floor. "We are having 'with lamb' tonight.” she told him referring to their ‘private joke.’ Yesterday, he had ‘with beef.’ “Mmm…mmm! Smells mighty good here!" Blue thumped harder, head cocked, mouth open, tongue lolling as he grinned at her. As soon as the bowl hit the floor, his nose dove in. Dinner was his favorite time of day. Mama chuckled at his enthusiasm as she fixed herself a glass of iced tea.

As she watched him, she remembered that not so long ago, she had been feeding two dogs across the room from each other to avoid a feisty scuffle. For a moment, she was touched by sadness. Poor Rusty. Just last year the two brothers had chewed through the gate in the backyard of their old house and run across the busy road to bark with the neighbor dogs. Rusty didn't make it back. Mama had heard the squeal of tires and the horrible thump. Just as she had jumped up from her desk, Blue had come running back in through the doggy door, barking wildly to let her know something had happened. She had locked him inside and gone rushing out to the front yard. After a frantic trip to the animal hospital, Mama had returned alone. Blue had searched the house and yard over and over, looking for his brother for months, his depression and anxiety as palpable as her own. Together for the whole nine years of their life, Blue had taken the loss as hard, if not worse, than Mama had…

“All done big boy?” she asked as she tugged on her shoes, shaking herself out of those thoughts. Blue finished licking the sides of the bowl and looked up at her, tail wagging briskly behind him. “Ha-ha, OK, let’s go outside.” Mama opened the door, and Blue rushed out. Half-way down the stairs, he stopped and looked back over his shoulder to make sure Mama was behind him. “I’m coming, silly dog.” She said seeing his apprehension. Assured, the big dog continued on down the steep steps to the bottom. Blue’s separation anxiety issues had gotten even worse since moving out here to the country. They had been bad enough at the house they had lived in before the move, now, he was almost out of control. The first time she had left him alone in their new apartment, he had ripped the door jamb right off the wall, bloodying his paws in the process. The second time, he had tried to chew his way out under the wire fence. When Mama had returned, he had greeted her at the gate, panting and trembling, blood running down his snout, head gashed, tooth broken and paws torn from the escape attempt. Both of them were shaking as she had cleaned him up.

Blue ran across the yard to find a spot to relieve himself as Mama sat in one of the green plastic chairs. She sipped on the glass of iced tea she had brought down with her as he wandered from post to post, ensuring that his new domain had not been disturbed since his last visit. “Everything OK, Bluedog?” She asked amused. He glanced up at her with a wide grin on his face, tongue lolling, before continuing his examination of the grounds. Mama found herself remembering the first time she had suspected that Blue had issues with anxiety. That had been when the brothers were still together, just under a year old, and Daddy had still been in the picture.

Mama and Daddy went out for the day, to do some shopping and have a meal. When they returned several hours later, no dogs came to greet them. A quick search revealed that they had somehow locked themselves in the bedroom. When Mama had opened the door, a great puff of feathers wafted over her and two boys, covered from head to tail, were sitting in the middle of the bed blinking at her sheepishly. “What the hell?!?” she exclaimed in disbelief as both boys jumped down, greeted her wildly then raced down the hall, great drifts of feathers following behind them, to go find Daddy. “Oh my Lord! Oh, Daddy, come here!” she called. By then, she had entered the room amongst the mounds of feathers. “Look! They have chewed the foot off the bed all the way down to the springs! And my feather pillows and the down comforter are shredded!” After a moment, when the shock wore off, Mama broke out into peals of laughter as Daddy joined her with a look of surprise on his face. “Oh my God!” he exclaimed, “We are never gonna get all this up!” But, he laughed too when the boys bounded back in and jumped up onto the bed sending clouds of feathers into the air around them. “I guess I better go get the shop-vac!” Daddy said as he laughed. Clean up had not been so easy, they found feathers for a month in strange places all over the house.

A few months later, on another trip away from home, they had come back to find that the boys had completely stripped the brand-new leather recliner, (bought on the day of the feather incident), right down to the bare wood on one side. After a trip to the vet where Mama got the assurance that they would probably be fine, they had pooped leather pieces for a week. That’s when she realized that her fears about separation anxiety might be real.

However, now Mama chuckled to herself at that memory as Blue came bounding over, tail wagging, sensing her amusement. “Come on silly bunny, let’s go back in”, she said after rubbing his ears. The two went back up the stairs, and Mama turned her attention to making her own dinner as Blue lay on the floor watching her. After she had a pot of stew going on the burner, she flipped on the T.V. and sat on the small couch to watch. Blue, taking that as his signal, hopped up with her and then tried to arrange himself across the back of the soft cushions. “What are you doing you crazy dog!” Mama exclaimed as a big paw slapped down across the side of her face. “You are not a Chihuahua! Get down off of there!” Blue craned his big head around to look at her sheepishly just as his back half slid down with a plop onto the cushion beside her. Mama laughed at his antics as he attempted to rearrange himself. He finally settled with his head on the arm and his butt in almost in her lap and cut his eyes at her to see if this was acceptable. Mama patted his butt. “I guess that’ll do.” She giggled as the tip of his tail wagged against her leg. She knew he totally believed he WAS a Chihuahua, having been raised with two of them. One, Diego, belonged to Angel, Mama’s daughter who had moved back in after Daddy left. The other, Tyler, belonged to Stephen, a friend of Angel’s who moved in as a roommate soon after Angel and her girlfriend Raelyn had arrived. Blue had learned a lot from the two pint-sized dogs.

Even though Mama referred to all the dogs as the ‘Floor People’ the Chihuahua’s had 'little dog syndrome,' and because of that, they believed their feet should rarely touch the floor. They traveled around the house hopping from one piece of furniture to another, but when Mama walked in and found Bluedog walking from the sofa, across the table to the chair on the other side as they had, she had to yell at him (while saving a vase of fresh flowers that almost hit the floor!) The Chihuahua’s also taught Blue that the best places to sleep were in a nest made out of Mama’s best pillows, curled up on the back of sofa, or in the window sill in the living room.

One day, Mama heard a crash and had come running in to find Blue on top of the bedside table under the window. The big dog had dragged his ‘blankey’ over onto it and was trying to screw himself into place on top and had knocked the lamp and everything else off in the process. She made him get down but had to snicker, he just didn't seem to understand why the little dogs fit there and he did not! When Angel and Diego moved out, Blue had been heartbroken. He searched for them all the time, circling the house and yard with his nose to the ground, just as he had done when Daddy left. His co-dependency and separation anxiety issues were already pretty bad by then, but soon after, when Stephen and Tyler also moved out, Blue was beside himself with worry. He was never more than five feet away from Mama after that, and now she had a hard time leaving the house without coming home to a disaster.