Spoiled Dog Part II

The picture above is Dispatch reviewing computer files when he was like 6 weeks old.
You know my dog is spoiled when it takes two posts to describe how spoiled he is. In his defense I've never bought him clothing, my husband says anything I put on him gives him a headache, the dog gets a headache not my husband. How does he know you ask? My husband says he can just tell. I think he just doesn't want a foo foo dog although a bichon looks foo foo, when he's blitzing or attacking he's anything but foo foo.
The dog does have a car seat and a stroller. Perfectly logical explanation though. I had to travel between here and MS with him when we lived down there cleaning up after Katrina. Dispatch is a good traveler, as long as he gets his way which is on my lap. Considering he's 17 lb now he doesn't quite fit between my legs and the steering wheel, well he does but if I were to wreck and the airbags came up it would be dead puppy automatically. Besides he does get annoying because not only does he like to ride on my lap the old leaning on my left arm is the perfect way to see the world go by. If Dispatch doesn't get his way he has been known to cry and pace for 650 miles of a 700 mile trip. So I got the car seat and put it in the back seat, he's fastened in by his collar, he immediately learned how to get out and hang himself. After a new harness and a few episodes he did learn to ride in it. He doesn't like it and it's every bit as cumbersome as an infant car seat except it folds but he would ride in it. Most of the time. I finally decided to put the passenger seat back as far as it would go and put the car seat in it. Don't know if he was any safer since he sort of hung out of it but he had a better view? Now since he doesn't go with me EVERYWHERE I took it out of the seat and only use it for long trips or when I feel particularly masochistic toward myself.
The stroller is because he follows me everywhere, all the time, continuously. When we were working in MS I would leave him in the car sometimes, then I left him in the car with the ac running. He still gets that treatment on occasion. He wasn't happy though. He does stay with me right on my heels, I know most towns have leash laws and I usually had a leash with me or on him but he didn't need one. He was right with me. Unless a large machine made a noise or a tree branch fell then he ran for what he perceived as safety which because he's a bichon sometimes his perceptions aren't too good. So I'd seen these strollers and thought it would be a good investment, you guessed it, he was penned up, he will ride in it just fine but when I walk away he wants to be right behind me. So the stroller is sort of a novelty item but I'm sure I'll use it again someday.
Bichons are known for being stubborn and having minds of their own, most HAVE to have a leash so I'm glad in a way he's like he is. He does respond to hand signals some. Oh and he was 2 years old before he got his first collar and leash. As I've written before he had to have a big thick leather collar because I got him a cloth one the first two times, they lasted 5 minutes and 2 minutes respectively. The first time I put a leash on him I was sure he was going to injure himself, we walked down to my cousins house, maybe 200 yards away. Dispatch was just going to live there if I wanted to put the leash back on him, sat there under the kitchen table when I got ready to leave and looked @ me like are you nuts I'm not getting that thing back on. We went to FL because my husband was cleaning up after Wilma down there, a bunch of French Canadians go there to winter, it was a NICE resort but crowded. Anyway they played that French bowling whatever it is and the dog and I would walk in the evenings, everyone would coo and say what a sweet bichon, (actually they would say ohh ave sich a sweet pupppeee, es ee beechon? don't flame me I'm part French) I'd say no he's a poodle (Missouri accent sounded like naw, heaz a poodel), after 2 states of people calling him a bichon we finally decided maybe he was, and the vet said he was. Anyway Dispatch was still learning to walk on the leash, he's mastered it now but down in FL he would prance and strut while people were around saying what a cute dog he was, they would get out of sight and he'd be back to wild cur dog struggling to get free of his oppressor, on his hind legs biting valiantly against the cruel ties that bound him or that's how he thought. I found a light chain leash so he wouldn't chew through THAT while I wasn't looking.
More on the spoiled dog later. He was rather compliant back then, this was an awkward teenage picture, see he didn't make a pretty poodle did he?? Plus brushing was like this horrible ordeal so I mostly cut his hair and gave up.