It happens a lot. Friends and family stop by and within half an hour they have been charmed by the yorkie/maltese cross that is Gracie.
Guests LOVE her.
Do you know who they DON'T love?
This guy:
Like the love for Gracie, I get the dislike for Dexter. He is very enthusiastic about house guests and his desire to greet them and love them and MAKE THEM LOVE HIM TOO!!! He jumps up. He dances around your feet. He nibbles and chews at your hands when you do try and pet him. He can't control his unabashed excitement about your visit and zings around the house like a madman, prancing and leaping and bouncing with the pure, simple joy of making new friends.
He weighs 13 pounds when he should only weigh 6 pounds. He's not fat, just a mutant. But he believes he only weighs 6 pounds and is the appropriate size for laps. He has a licking problem. When you sit down he'll stand against you or on you, and attempt to lick your brain clean via the inside of your ears. If you're a woman he'll attempt to stick his head down your shirt and lick between your boobs. He is RELENTLESS about this. He licks the other dog's ears, the cat's ears and the bunny's ears. He has a thing for ears.
He has no concept of personal space. Where you are, why he must be too.
Trying to snuggle on the couch with daddy? I must sit between the two of you. No - not beside daddy, between you. If mommy is sitting on the couch, a part of me must be touching a part of her at all times. Need to tinkle mom? Here, I'll escort you to the bathroom! Going outside for 2 seconds to put the paper in the recycling bin? I'd better go with you. Going into the bedroom to get socks? I'm good at picking out socks!! And if you don't let me do any of these things with you, I will stand at the door and whine and cry pathetically and LOUDLY until the entire neighborhood believes you are beating me.
He is like this, to a certain degree, with houseguests. He will try jumping at them to get their attention. He'll lick their ears if given the chance and he wants to sit beside them on the couch and will fervently try to cram his 13 pounds of bony knees and elbows into their lap at every possible opportunity..
I've lost count of the amount of times visitors and/or houseguests have threatened to steal Gracie from us. With the exception of Celina the Pet Nanny, no one has ever threatened to steal Dexter.
Obviously I failed at turning Dexter into a well-behaved dog and I take full responsibility for this. Celina the Pet Nanny/Canadian Dog Whisperer could only do so much and believe me, Dexter would be about 10 times worse if he hadn't had some training sessions with Celina and Mirek.
But this isn't about who is to blame for Dexter's disobedience (me) or weird ear fetishes (no idea who is to blame for THAT one). This is about how appearances are deceiving.
Gracie? Our small, sweet pretty little girl suffered from such severe separation anxiety when we first brought her home that she pooped and urinated and howled and screamed and barked herself hoarse within the first 5 minutes of being left alone. For the first year and a half that she lived with us I spent $300 a month on dog care for her. That's $5,400 dollars she cost us. And I couldn't just drop her off at any old dog care facility because did I mention Gracie isn't a fan of big dogs? And to be at a dog care you have to get along with ALL dogs. I had to put an ad out and interview a bunch of weird and scary people before I found the perfect person to look after her. Every morning for a year and a half I drove 20 minutes extra in the morning and 20 minutes extra in the evening to drop her off and pick her up from doggie daycare. After nearly 2 years of medication, a stable home environment, and progressively longer periods of being alone, Gracie is now weaned off the meds and can stay home alone with the other dogs. But it was a long, frustrating and expensive 2 years.
Dexter? Two days after he came home with us, he was sleeping in his crate all night without a peep. After a week with us he would gladly go into his crate for the day for nothing more than a cookie. He had his bed, his bowl of water and his stuffie. He was good to go. See you when you get home mommy!
Dexter eats a lot of inedible objects...rocks, sticks, socks, hair bows from Gracie's head. You give it to him he'll try to eat it.
Gracie eats shit. That's right, you heard me. She.Eats.Shit. She's partial to a particular brand of shit - mainly Hannah the Shepherd's Shit and if you do not watch Gracie outside like a hawk every single moment it won't be long before she is standing underneath Hannah's squatting body with an upturned face and an open mouth like Hannah's ass is the world's best soft serve ice cream machine.
And if she happens to miss it fresh from the factory? No problem!! She'll eat stale shit too! And then she'll come and try to kiss you with her shit-stained tongue.
Dexter is a chihuahua. That means he is miserable, bites, hates children, hates other dogs, and yaps non-stop right? Apparently Dexter forgot somewhere along the way that he is supposed to be a miserable jackass of a dog. He loves EVERYONE. And I mean everyone. Adults, kids, other dogs - it doesn't matter to him. He'll try and make friends with everyone. Big dogs, little dogs, big kids, small kids. Shy kids, friendly kids, kids who grab his tail, kids who chase him around the dog park. He gives everyone a chance.
And before Gracie came along the only time Dexter barked was if the doorbell rang. It's a surprisingly non-shrill bark for a chihuahua.
Gracie is nervous and snappy around dogs she does not know and a pushy and domineering asshole to dogs she does know. She is food aggressive and snarly with Dexter when he tries to cuddle her and she attempts to be pack leader on a regular basis.
She also has that shrill - makes you want to stab yourself in the ear drum with a sharp pencil - bark that she puts to excellent use. The tiniest little noise sets off a volcanic eruption of barking that DOES NOT STOP. And she encourages the other dogs to join her. She welcomes us home from a long day of work with that same shrill, non-stop, screechingly loud barking and she will.not.shut.up. Especially if her "daddy" is in the room.
Also, she makes no attempt to disguise the fact that Ben is her favourite person in the entire world. I may be Dexter's favourite but he at least pretends to be enthusiastic about seeing Ben.
There's no real point to this post other than that it never fails to amuse me that our houseguests want to steal our pushy, dominant, shit-eating "I will cut a bitch and not think twice about it" Gracie over our sweet, "What the World Needs Now is Love, Sweet Love..." Dexter.
First impressions are deceiving in dogs too y'all.
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