lil pink socks

When Baxter first came into our lives, I was determined to keep our new boy bribe free. My boy was going to do great things for me, be the Lassie who saves me from the well out of the purity of the love we shared, not because he knew I had a snack in my pocket when I fell in. I figured my goals were realistic, because our 23 pound hound wasn't very food motivated at the time anyway. He had yet to figure out that there was no horn of plenty from which kibble freely flowed like in his original home. And so, he miraculously did the simple things we wanted him to do, without the need for payment in the usual forms of funding a doxie accepts, something edible or shreddable.

That is, until he achieved his ideal weight.

Baxter and I both have become a lot wiser in the two years we have been together. There is trust, there is love, but there is also payment for a job well done. At the end of every session of jazzing, shuffling, and taptoeing, after every crazy thing I might ask him to do, Baxter collects his paycheck as gratefully as I am happy to give it. Work leads to food leads to tummy love.

Yesterday's work was going to be pretty simple, I thought. Baxter would easily earn his week's rawhide knot just by modeling the baby hat and gloves that we found at tiny molly's park, that I had washed back to life just that morning.

Rawhide, once a thing to be buried and savored later, now the ultimate motivator to be gobbled in a flash. Too motivating, perhaps, because all Baxter wanted to do was rush the photo shoot and collect his payment early. "Gimme my rawhide now or I'm going on strike!", he barkingly protested, though it's hard to take a doxie wearing pink socks very seriously.