A Boy and His Dog

When we decided to get a second dog, Doug was the one who did some reading up on various breeds. He really wanted a bloodhound, and had read that they were really good with children. In fact, they can be so passive they can easily be abused by a child pulling on their ears, etc. We knew our lab mix should get along fine with children, and the bloodhound sounded like a good match, so, we ended up getting a bloodhound about 2 and a half years ago. Our bloodhound does not seem to have a typical "bloodhound" personality in that she is extremely skittish and shy. Won't let anyone pet her when we are out walking, hides from people in the house, won't walk past unfamiliar objects placed in her usual path, that kind of thing. She finally has warmed up to our immediate family members, since she has seen (and I supposed smelled) them several times. All this to say, we were not sure how she was going to react to the newest human member of the family. For the longest time, she didn't seem particularly interested in the baby; she would sniff at him ocassionally, then walk away. The majority of the time she is inside, she sleeps on the landing on our stairs, and since Eli doesn't climb stairs - they don't interact very often. Lately however, she has shown a very gentle, submissive attitude towards the baby. Lucy the Lab has actually been more likely to give a warning 'growl' at E when he is getting too much in her personal space, even though she will come around him quite often. Today, for whatever reason, Maggie laid down beside Eli and just let him go to town playing with her. He patted her, pulled on her feet, her ears, her dog tag, and she just didn't seem to mind at all. I sat beside them the whole time, because (1) I don't want her to suddenly snap if Eli did indeed hurt her and (2) I want to protect her from getting hurt by Eli! I just couldn't resist taking a ton of pictures of their interaction. I wish the lighting was better where they were sitting, but that's just how it goes sometimes. Enjoy the pictures! (well, I can't seem to display them in an orderly manner; I had so many, I made them smaller, thinking I could place them next to each other, but can't seem to get that figured out, so, ummmm, enjoy the Scatteredness!)