Winnie the Cog

Life with Winnie has changed in the last few months. She is becoming or has become some sort of cog. Cog, you say? By cog I don't mean the dictionary meaning:
cog |käg|
noun: a wheel or bar with a series of projections on its edge that transfers motion by engaging with projections on another wheel or bar.

My definition:
cog |käg|
noun: a dog that in a lot of ways is a cat.

I simply put just one letter from cat and two from dog because, yes, Winnie is more dog than cat.

No matter what she is, it is for sure that she is no longer a puppy in all the ways that were so fun yet expensive in her earlier life. She no longer eats holes in socks or whole socks as she did in her youth. She can lie on the couch for hours with the remote right by her head with no temptation or desire to eat it. Shoes and flip flops are no longer chew toys. She does still look for attention by running around with a shoe or other off limits thing, but will drop it when commanded. I knew all along that she knew right from wrong, and now I have proof. A recent example of her new found dogness was her new found obedience at a critical moment in time. We had just left the Wilcox after a 5 mile off leash romp. I was too lazy to hook up her harness and used her collar to leash her up. When we got to the car, Winnie was not ready to go and she wrestled herself out of her collar (that was attached to her leash). Just then a car was coming down the street. I screamed in terror, "WINNIE COME!". You know what that dog did? She took a look at the Wilcox before turning around and trotting right to me and hopping in the back part of the van that she normally has to be forced into. In her puppyhood, she wouldn't have even looked back, and the car would have swerved to avoid her. So, yes.. she was a good girl, a very good girl. She didn't have to use another one of her nine lives (that I think she got from her catness) on that one. I think she was about out of them, so she became a dog just in time.

Aside from her nine lives, Winnie has always been a little bit of a cat. As she has grown into a dog, her catness has become more apparent. First of all, Winnie is a finicky eater. She prefers her dry kibble wetted and soaked and even then she can easily walk away from it if she isn't in the mood. Another example of her catness is her ability to turn away affection if she is in the middle of a nap. Today she was out on the patio soaking in the sun. When I sat down next to her to give her a loving, that cog got up, walked a few feet away, plopped herself in a new sun spot,shut her eyes, and ended the drama by making a very loud dog sigh. The rejection!

Unlike a real cat, Winnie is a total scaredy-cat. She is scared of anything mechanical that makes noise and moves or blows or sucks. She comes running for mommy or whoever is available before the mechanical device is even plugged in. I have to put my cog in the garage in her crate when the maid comes due to the fact that she about bit the poor lady who must use a vacuum to do her job properly. Winnie still won't run on the sidewalk in front of a house on our street that had fake cobwebs on it this last October. She also has a strange nervous habit of barking at a particular bush in our yard every night that once was probably home to a rat that startled her in her puppyhood. The list of odd things this scaredy-cog is scared of could go on and on and probably could be a source of its own blog. But, I will stop here.

When all is said and done, Winnie really is a dog. No cat would bark as much or run as fast as my Winnie. Well, I don't really like cats so I am glad that she is a cog and not a dat. Although, I have met dats that I almost liked.