The troll under the bridge

 
Things have changed around our house since Gypsy died.  She was my second in command, but her second in command was always Cabell.  We adopted him from Animal Connections after moving down here and that is how we got involved with that group.  He was about 4-6 months old at the time.  There has been a lot of speculation about his paternity but all we know for sure is that his mother was a Saint Bernard.  Gypsy accepted Cabell when we adopted him because he was a pup and he was a male.  He was always the only dog who could ever make Gypsy wrestle and play like a dog.  He could jump on her, tackle her, grab her by the legs, etc., and she would take it from him, at least up to a point.  No other dog ever dared to even attempt to play with Gypsy in that way, it just wasn't done. 

Cabell was always part of the downstairs pack, along with Gypsy and Bremo.  The latter two were afraid of the stairs and just didn't come upstairs even if the gate was open.  Cabell generally stayed downstairs as well, he was part of that pack, but he wasn't afraid of the stairs the way the other two seemed to be.  Since Gypsy died, and even starting a couple months before, Cabell began coming upstairs, generally at night, to sleep in the bedroom along with Trooper, Molly, Zachary, and sometimes Ryland. 

When he's not upstairs at night or outside during the day, Cabell is generally camped out in the small enclosed space under the stairway that leads upstairs.  There is a small door into the space and we used to try to use it as storage space, which is not plentiful in an pre-Civil War farmhouse.  Once Cabell discovered that the latch on the small door wasn't very secure, he moved in and took over the space.  That was fine, it's a nice secure den and we generally have a very large, Cabell-sized bed in there. 



I guess we've maybe been bringing more foster dogs into the house since Gypsy died because it's now easier to do so.  The other dogs are generally fine with that, but Cabell has become a bit like the troll under the bridge in Three Billy Goats Gruff.  His den (we call it the Cabell Cave) is situated in the front hallway such that the fosters have to walk past it in order to get upstairs to my office where I keep them crated.  Like the troll under the bridge, Cabell accosts the passersby and challenges their right to cross.  It's really kind of funny.  Trooper will sneak past him, and sometimes Ryland, but when I bring in Hobby and the boxer, Willy, I have to escort them past the Cabell Cave to get them safely upstairs. I don't think Cabell would do anything, he's always been fine with the foster dogs, but he lets them know in no uncertain terms that the cave is HIS space.