My Neighbor My Best Bud

He's not my pet ... he belongs to the neighbor ladies across the street, but Beauregard "Beau" Pitts knows who belongs at my house and who doesn't.

He doesn't just carry on when people come to (or near) the home of his Mother and Grandmother, but he carries on a fit when anyone comes to my house as well.

He sniffs, he whines, he 'communicates' like any other Dachshund of his size and age, but there is something unusual about Beau ... not only does he let me know from across the street when someone who shouldn't be here is at my house (including my own relatives, lol), but ...

Beau has been flirting with me from Day One. I swear.

From the time he was a little one and his folks brought him home a mere just-born, and moved him away from his sister whom he used to visit a lot when they were younger, but not so much now, he seems to have an unnerving attraction to me from the moment he first laid eyes on me.

I'm not necessarily a dog person...I used to be a cat person.

Beau doesn't seem to have a deep regard or respect for male humans, only a hand full of them are his real friends - but he gets all dog-eyed bleary when pretty girls come around, and I'd like to think my old decrepit ass was one of his first loves.

We often wonder if Beau was a str8 Alpha Male in a previous life, because he just has this affinity for females that is off the charts. He doesn't bark and growl like a madman until he sees strange men around his house and mine; and trust, mine is the ONLY door in the neighborhood that he watches like a dog-hawk.

He also gets very nervous and pees himself when children are around and he often scratches his butt on the livingroom carpet when he is irritated. Sometimes he acts like a dog, but some days, he likes pretending to be a people.

Not very long ago, about a year or so ago, Beau had to come across the street and stay with me for a night or two.

His grandma, Mother Pitts, had a severe life-threatening stroke and had to be airlifted to Atlanta. Beau was immediately very aware that something had gone very awry in his life.

I can't attest to his every mood the entire time she was gone, and she was away for nearly two months in recovery - but the two nights he stayed with me at the very beginning, he seemed to be very afraid and anxious. He seemed truly hurt. He knew something was wrong, even if we couldn't tell him what it was.

He stayed extremely close to me, engaging in habits he knew that his Grandma would not have allowed, like trying to jump in my lap or begging my food and refusing to eat his own. I let him snuggle close, I rubbed and petted him constantly, but when he started climbing the stairs to try and get in bed with me, I had to cut him off.

I put him on his leash, but lengthened it where he could move around freely and even get in his own bed in the mudroom and kept the back door open so he wouldn't be restricted to just the one room. I understood his need to stay close to something at all times, but the bed thing was a bit much.

It is but one of the many reasons I don't have a pet of my own ... no patience for free-range movement at this time; however, if Beau were a human being, he might say to me at times -- frisky wagging tail and all -- "I love you."

And to him, I would say back "I love you more."

A year later, Grandma Pitts is back home again and moving around like she doesn't have a care in the world, often slog-hipping her way up the steps to her front door faster than I would try to.

I told them long ago that if anything ever came up with Beau (and I've heard her threats to evict him on several occasions for minor and major infractions around her house, some of which he was told he was going to have to get a job and pay for that), that he would be the only Big Puppy I would allow to live with me if need be.

I know him well enough, have known him most of his life; but I'd just have to get used to him.

Still, when it comes to my bedroom, it remains off limits.

He don't know me like dat.

-30-