Thank you Cleo

It's Cleo's human here, I wanted to share this on her blog...she wouldn't mind. Well...she might be just a s'kosh embarrassed, but people oughta' know how special she is to us, right?

I have often posted about C and her ability to handle things gently...with the kids or the pups, or the kittens. This time she hit me with it and I wanted to share.


Without going into to much detail the husband made on of "those" comments last night...you know one of those things where right when it happens it hits you kinda wrong but you aren't sure why...you respond and then later sit thinking "wth?? that was just NOT nice/true/accurate/loving"...


I started to feel rather lousy about it, and really get moody and left the room to hit FB and distract myself. The feeling wouldn't go away. He hit a nerve, one which...looking back, he probably didn't even know was there...and I got truly upset at that point...fighting back tears. Girly I know but it happens, even to me.


I had no sooner stifled a small sob, and it WAS small...I was in a completely different ROOM from dh and Cleo and a TV was on to boot...then Cleo just "appeared" at my side...head down....almost skulking up to my knees as I sat perched in my puter chair.


She sat very close and put her paw on my lap and I lost it...just started sobbing like a dolt. She sat there very still, panting softly and offering a lick to my knee every now and again (I SWEAR I heard a voice in my head saying "now now dearie it'll be alright, just tell Miss Cleo all about it..." in a Angela Lansbury voice, but that HAD to be my imagination).


Now the above is what you expect from any dog....they don't like their people upset, and I appreciated it. What came next was what floored me.


Cleo left me sobbing (quietly..I did not want to attract attention)...and went to the doorway between my room and dh's and stood there THUMPING her tail on the wall...and dancing on her front feet while intently STARING into the room my dh was in...apparently at him, he later told me. He got up to presumably let her out the back door which was nearby...and of course saw me and came towards me to ask what was wrong. Cleo then came and stood between us and panted a little harder as we had a somewhat terse exchange and then he sat down on the floor...and we both took a breath.


As soon as he did so she went to the back door pointedly and asked to be let out.


We talked...tough night, but we would not have talked otherwise. I tend to be a "keeper' tho that is bad and utterly the wrong way to handle things.


Again...I was and am truly floored by what she did. I don't know why she did it...but it is a Leo trait to be very concerned about family issues and very sensitive to them. They cannot abide their people arguing and it stresses them, in some cases to the point of ill health. Not a dog to choose for a tumultuous household. We typically are not one....but she knew what to do in thise case almost as much as a person with a Therapy degree did.

What a dog!