Before Millie had her heartworm treatments, Tinker and Millie were frequent playmates. Millie likes to play rough-n-tumble. Jasper was a great playmate for her, but Jasper has moved on. Blondie has not been fond of rough play since a foster snagged her eyelid and tore it, requiring surgery to repair it (and weeks in a cone collar). I don’t do rough play. That’s kid stuff. But Tinker likes to play, and he has been good with Millie.

Tinker is twice her size, but he does not abuse that, and neither of them get combative in play as some dogs do. When play turns to a fight it can get bloody fast. Tinker does growl when he plays. We don’t like that and are discouraging it. But some dogs are into trash-talking when they play and it’s hard to get them to stop.

Millie is in her recovery period now so she cannot play with Tinker. But he still considers her his friend. He wants to play any time we take her out for a walk – so we have to be careful to keep them separated because as she gets to feeling better she wants to play as well.

This morning HairyFace took Millie outside for a walk and she did all her business. He let her decide if she wanted to go back inside to her crate or stay outside in her pen. Fresh air and elbow room appealed to her: she went to her pen door and nosed at the latch trying to open it. She stayed out there all morning.

Coincidentally (or not) Tinker also stayed outside most of the morning. At first he was seen strolling around the yard, sniffing and marking. Then he disappeared. After a while Hairy went to see where he got off too.

Tinker was laying on a patch of grass near Millie’s pen. Both were just laying there, being good. Hairy went back inside to work some more. At lunch time Tinker did not want to come in so Hairy took a couple of cookies outside for them and gave us ours inside.

A little while later Hairy went to check on them again. All was calm, but Millie asked to come back inside. Hairy clipped a leash to her harness and escorted her back to her crate. She went right inside and curled up on her pillow.

Tinker decided to come inside too.

Hairy went back to work in the den.

Blondie and I joined him.

Tinker stayed in the living room next to Millie’s crate.

After a while the sound of bone chewing was heard from the living room. There are several chew bones in the toy basket on the heart of the fireplace, so we thought nothing of it. Obviously Tinker was helping himself to the toys. That is allowed.

The crunching noises increased and several loud clunks sounded as a large bone was dropped on the wood floor. He was having a good time!

Then a change.

There was more chewing-crunching going on than there should have been and some metallic banging noises. Hairy went to investigate…