No, Unc, that's Ruby. She's not barricaded exactly-- just has a kennel space (larger than a huge crate) with outdoor access, for times she's not under our supervision in the main part of the house. She's only nippy with people thrusting too-quick friendly hands at her, thanks to early kennel abuse reinforced by overly-friendly children left unsupervised during a Mudcat gathering. She likes her corner, and she eats just fine!

Ruby was an adolescent rescue from a puppy mill, had never seen a door or gate swing open in her life, very traumatized, very needy. And a Dalmatian on top of that. (Her picture is with F's in the above link.) She's been socialized to the extent she can be, and spends time with us daily, but we don't put her in situations that make her unhappier. As she ages she's calmer in some respects but less predictable in others.

MMario is a special friend of hers and when she makes friends like that, she lets us know how much interaction she wants.

In some ways Faulkner is Ruby's dog-- her puppy. She relates better to dogs than to people, and they play and wrestle and sleep together very happily-- both of them grieve if apart for long. Her Dalmatian bounciness works off F's need to run, so they are a great match. But stay out of her corner when it's food time, or she doesn't handle it well-- she likes to be alone with her food or will ignore it-- won't even approach it if someone else is in earshot. So they eat separately.

I think the abuse was connected to feding time-- that she was locked in a pen and fed over the gate that never opened. She's so obsessively fastidious that I concluded she must have been forced to pick a pooping-corner in that pen to avoid being awash in filth.

She was the runt of her litter-- she's almost toy size, and her spots are liver-color, not black. Her destiny would have been to be the milk-dog for an endless stream of better dogs' litters-- so the better dogs could be re-bred immediately for more litters per year, giving more puppy sales per year. We got her just before her first pregnancy/milk cycle-- she was an adolescent in heat a week after arriving. But by then her mind was pretty warped.

~Susan