Chet Baker, Alpha Dog

Homecoming night for Phoebe. Chet Baker's 12th birfday, December 12, 2016.  She puts him through his tricks. Or tries to. Prepare to be amazed!  For me, the highlight of this video is not Chet's prowess at tricks.

 It's the oinking. Turn your volume up. He oinks when he sits up (0:17) and again when he flops down to play dead (0:45).



The dog whisperers among you will note that Chet is not the most deferential of dogs. He was the dominant pup in a two-pup litter, nearly twice the size of his sibling.

photo by Jane Streett, Boston Terrer Breeder Emeritus Extraordinaire

Hard to believe our little chunker ever fit in someone's palm but there you have it: newborn Bacon!

 And a bit later, when he was coming into his Bakertude:

photo by Jane Streett, Boston Terrer Breeder Emeritus Extraordinaire

When a pup starts out life as the dominant one in the litter, he can be expected to cop an attitude with people, too. The point being, Chet has been a bossy guy from the get-go. On the day we went to pick him up, he stood down Liam, just five years old, barking and even growling at him. Even at 9 weeks of age, he took a look at our little family, figured I was Alpha, Phoebe, 9 years old, was #2 in line; and Liam was destined only for domination. Chet wanted Liam's place. He wanted to be #3, and while I was at her kitchen table, still going over care instructions with his breeder, Jane Streett, Chet was already working on that hierarchy. We piled in the car, kept him in his pet carrier for about one mile, and then he came out to sleep on a delighted Phoebe's lap for the duration of the trip. "I was the happiest person in the world," Phoebe remembers. When he'd wake up, his little flop ears would prick, and he'd bark and growl in his ridiculous puppeh voice at Liam!! The audacity of that babydog!

 I chuckle to think of it now, but I remember wondering what we'd signed onto. I'm sure Liam did too!  Jane told me to teach Liam how to roll Chet over on his back and hold him down "until he goes limp as spaghetti." With some strong correction, the barking and growling stopped, but Chet freely engaged in dominance mounting of his blonde brother until he had an attitudectomy (highly recommended for bossy boy dogs).  Oh this photo. See how Liam's protecting his wee little hands? :) Just good practice around puppies, but especially around tiny sock-sweatered Baker.

It got better. Chet quickly became Liam's living teddeh bear. 

 Even now, though, I see traces of that #1 Puppy. He does things with the kids he'd never try with me. H can be seen dissing Phoebe throughout this video: lunging for the treat, storming the castle in the rudest way, and even giving her a little snarly-poo at the very end (1:27), when she reaches to grab hold of him. He's a naughty boy, copping the same attitude as a grampa as he did as a pup. 

He's not perfect, never has been, because I'm far from a perfect dog trainer. But we love him, warts, oinks, emanations, snarls and all. He's 99.9% wonderful. 

Also a major babe magnet.

Uppity Puppy

major chetfix comin' up
In Chet Baker lingo, Uppiteh Puppeh. Every once in awhile you read about a dog that "snaps," that becomes something Other for a fleeting moment or a lifetime. Now, Phoebe and I have seen the Other in Chet. We finally got a half-inch of rain last Thursday, and everyone was feeling revived. Birds were zipping all over the place, bathing in the Spa, feeding, singing, playing...Phoebe got frisky and got her basketball out to play. Chet loves basketballs. He really, really loves the leather one. Too much, he loves that ball.It was clear that Chet had plans for Phoebe's basketball. She held it up, not daring to bounce it, because if she did, Chet would have it in the blink of an eye.Finally she tried to dribble it. Big mistake. Chet wanted to puncture that basketball so badly. He set upon it, snarling, trying to dig a canine tooth into it. Oh, how he loves to pop balls. It's a bad habit he picked up as a puppy--remember Scooby? The deflated basketball he carried all the way around The Loop? I posted about it back in January 2006, back when a Chet Baker post brought one comment if I was lucky. Check it out, there's such a cute puppy picture of him...He has a Thing for Basketballs.

While I was there, I dug around in the archives and found Gremlin's Gold. One of my favorite posts. No comments. How times have changed. You young whippersnapper bloggers who come to this thing with a built-in audience, gettin' comments right off the bat...why, we used to have to walk through thigh-deep snow for a year or more to get a comment, right, Birdchick? But I digress. Back to the Changeling:

Chet planted his feet on the ball and barked defiantly. My ball. Mine, mine, mine, mine. He barked so loudly and so sharply that Bill, who was out at the end of our quarter-mile long driveway, called us on his cellphone to see what was wrong. He thought it sounded like Chet, but then again it didn't. Well, it wasn't quite Chet Baker. It was the wolf in him, out for an airing. Baooooooow!Chet successfully held me and Phoebe off for several minutes. Every time he tried to puncture the ball we scolded him, but we couldn't get it away from him. His terrier half was all the way out. He was just this side of being out of control. There was a weird light in his eyes that told me not to touch him. So I pulled out Darth Vader. The voice that the kids fear; the voice that puts a stop to anything they might be doing immediately. Above all else, Boston terriers are sensitive to tone of voice, and this is a tone I don't use very often. Maybe once or twice a year.
He stopped barking. I got the ball.
I demanded to know what he could possibly have been thinking. And he deflated, visibly. I wasn't thinking, Mether. I wanted the basketball. I wanted to pop it. I still want to pop it, and I think you are a party pooper. If I had my own room I would go in it and slam the door.
photo by Phoebe Thompson

Well, you aren't going to pop it. And you are a naughty dog. A very naughty dog.
Take your AirDog dumbbell, and chew that up.I am still so mad at you. But all right. I will.
And for good measure I am going to disembowel my new cat. And you can clean it up, because I think you are mean.Don't forget your ABC's, young man. A is for Alpha. And you are not Alpha.

But I love you very much, and you are the best doggie in the land.

the real Chet Baker

I love you, too, Mether.