Man's Best Confidant

Last night, the boys were fighting, and it got increasingly worse, and I was pretty intolerant of the whole thing. Ian was traumatized, both from the conflict and from my humorless response to it all, and started heading downstairs. I barked at him to go to bed, but he came back with, "Can I run downstairs right now? I want to talk to Golden."

Suddenly, I got it: he wasn't just running off recklessly; he wanted to confide his grief in his dear canine friend. Ian believes that Golden understands the things that he says to him, and he thinks he has trained him to nod or shake his head to respond meaningfully to yes-or-no questions. So of course, I had to let him go.

However, Daniel was not about to be misrepresented to Golden by a highly interested party:

"He's gonna say I'm a mean and terrible brother. I'm gonna tell that to Golden."

Daniel ran right down after Ian, to defend his reputation.

(Daniel, February 2, 2012)