We've been working kind of hard to get Jasper (pup) and Pendleton (hedgehog) to exist in the same room together without a)Pendleton having a heart attack or b)Jasper ending up with a mouthful of quills.
Jasper just gets SO excited whenever he discovers that hedgehog in the room. He bounces around sniffing excitedly while Pendleton turns into a ball of really sharp points and hisses ferociously. Inevitably, Jasper gets too close with his sniffing and receives a poke in the nose. By then he has usually had it with all the excitement and starts barking at this frustrating little ball that won't stop hissing at him or hurting him when he tries to play. He's actually kind of terrified of the hedgehog.
Meanwhile, Pendleton wonders why he keeps being prodded (and occasionally licked) and why won't this gigantic nose stop bothering him.
I mean, it's Megan's fault, really. She bought Pendleton a little hedgehog friend stuffed animal when she first got him, which he ignored completely. Eventually it was passed down to Jasper in his early puppyhood. And who would blame him when he tried to pick up his toy which actually happened to be a real live hedgehog?
Thus began the Jasper/Pendleton relationship.
So we decided to try again a few times and finally accomplished something when we managed to have Jasper lay quietly until Pendleton got used to him.
To be fair, Pendleton isn't actually a very nice hedgehog friend to Jasper. When Jasper wasn't paying attention to him, he tried to crawl on him and/or poke him on purpose. This sent Jasper two feet into the air and it was actually really hilarious, but it doesn't really do much for mutual trust, if you know what I mean.
Then Jasper got real protective of his rawhide bone.
At one point, Jasper was actually chasing Pendleton around the room barking. Generally the second Pendleton hears a loud noise, he rolls into a ball, so this was real progress.
This hedgehog knows who's in charge around here.
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