I took Alvin and Stevie to my mom's house for an afternoon visit. While there I decided that I would leave for a few minutes to see what his reaction was to me leaving him while not in his own home. I had hoped that he wouldn't show any signs of distress because if he does get adopted, I hope he isn't too dependent on me so that his transition will be easier. I realize that leaving him with my mom and Stevie wasn't an accurate gauge but I thought we could start there. I left for about 10 minutes and when I came back my mom initially told me that Alvin showed a bit of distress, but when I told her that my hope was that he wouldn't be upset, she then confessed that she had embellished the story so that my feelings wouldn't be hurt. The reality was that he was just fine until my mom laid down on the couch and then he seemed a bit concerned, probably because he thought the host of the party was going to fall asleep on him. We stayed at my mom's house for nearly two hours and he did very well until my mom went into the other room to sleep because she was getting a bad headache. Her house has a door that can then close off the bedrooms from the rest of the house and once Alvin was separated from her, he started circling at the door. It must have been an awful tease to bring him over to her house and then not allow him to be near her. His response was to give me a few seconds of attention and then went back to holding a vigil at the door while waiting for her return. I am going to make more of an effort to take him to her house more regularly because he finds it largely entertaining due to how many new things there are to nose tap. Timmie was the only dog to get to go over by himself for visits at grandma's house and I still don't know all that transpired over there but it must have been pretty great because he always begged to go and after having been gone for a couple of hours he returned with what truly looked like a smile and was mysteriously never hungry, even when he was supposed to be dieting. I am hoping that maybe Alvin can have some visits alone there too but I know that Timmie was extra special to my mom and he may be the only dog capable of penetrating the, I don't take care of dogs rule that my mom had firmly in place before the arrival of Timmie. Even with my mom's fear that Alvin will go potty in her house, if there is ever another dog capable of convincing her, it is Alvin.
I was able to observe Alvin watching and imitating Stevie. Stevie approached a couple of groups of flowers and sniffed them. She was clearly looking for food but then Alvin had to go to the groups of flowers and also sniff them repeatedly. He looked like he was smelling the flowers and was so cute. Once Stevie has carefully examined every single item in my mom's house for any potential food, she then resumes her normal activity of napping. In the meantime, Alvin gets to follow her everywhere and appears very hopeful that Stevie will sniff something out and get them a little treat......as though she would share if she did find something. Once Stevie goes to sleep, Alvin can then resume his favorite activity of staring at my mom, while I resume my pitiful, pay attention to me, pleas, which continue to fall on deaf ears. Someday I will learn that trying to compete with my mom for the affection of any living being is fruitless because she truly has something extra special about her and kids, dogs, cats, and adults all know it.
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