Is Uncle Joel Becoming Daddy?

I've mentioned that my employer/landlady has three dogs, and that I'm their nanny. There's Magnus, the gigantic Lab previously noted. There's Fritz, a big, goofy Shepherd. And then there's Ghost, a smaller (maybe 45 pounds) dog of uncertain breed; sort of like a Rhodesian Ridgeback, but without the ridge. All three were spoiled rotten by their owner, my dead best friend. He treated them like retarded five-year-olds, and they played the part. They adored him. They adore his wife. They kinda liked me, but not in any dependent way.

We've been alone here together for going on six months now, and in that time we'd grown closer. They knew I'm the go-to guy, and they mostly obeyed me. But there was still a sense that I was the nanny; I called myself Uncle Joel.

But then recently I had to spend most a week far away in the city, getting work done on my leg. Neighbors made sure the dogs were fed and medicated, but they spent that time alone in their big enclosure, named Gitmo, which we built over a year ago when they started chasing cattle. They'll put up with the enclosure for a half a day or so without distress, but several days were too much. They had pretty much gotten over their anxiety over Daddy's death until this.

So when I came back and let them out of Gitmo, they didn't quite know what to do. At first they were kind of stand-offish, as if I'd betrayed them. But then they came around, and suddenly they wouldn't let me out of their sight, barely out of their touch. Ghost in particular, who had always been by far the most standoffish of the dogs, suddenly became positively clingy. That was two weeks ago, and now he wants to sleep with me under the blankets. Since I sleep on a couch it's problematic, but he's heartbroken when I won't let him in. Uncomfortable.

Now, here's a funny thing. The pack used to be larger; some other purebred dogs, who were more nearly...well, normal...were placed with other families after their owner died. Ghost always resented being one of the lower dogs in a pack, and when they were younger Magnus and Fritz used to push him around pretty badly. He didn't always take that as submissively as was good for him. And about three years ago, he did something unique: He provisionally moved out. I've mentioned my weekender neighbors; they're a very nice older couple who have been building a big, elaborate house about a mile away for the past seven or eight years. About three years ago, he started disappearing every weekend and moving in with them. He didn't ask their opinion about it, but they went along with the joke. And that's the way it's been every weekend for three years: They show up, and Ghost disappears. It's part of the routine.

Well, last weekend, the first full weekend since I came back, they showed up and Ghost stayed put. This was so surprising that I hiked over with all the dogs, just so Ghost could get his weekender neighbor fix. When the other dogs and I came home, Ghost came back too. He disappeared again and spent the day with the neighbors. But I'd forgotten some little business I had with them and went back that evening. Ghost insisted on coming home with me, and wouldn't go back. I just wrote it off as lingering separation anxiety, and expected things to get back to normal by this weekend.

This weekend the neighbors arrived. Ghost became more and more distraught. He went halfway down the ridge in their direction, and turned back to the lair. He whined at me, in that way he has when he wants something from me. He stood in the yard and whined. He came into the lair and whined. He ran down to the meadow, turned back and whined. Finally, while he was in the meadow, I yelled out the window, "Ghost! You wanna go for a walk?" He exploded up the slope and when he got to the yard he started jumping up and down in an ecstasy of excitement. He wanted to go to the neighbors, but he wanted me to take him there. That never happened before.

Early this morning I followed a Lew Rockwell link to some news article about how scientists have recently discovered that dogs have much more complex emotions than previously believed (by scientists.) Those scientists were pretty clearly never dog owners: It's not that big a surprise.