Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Her Majesty

When I got Hadley I promised myself that I wouldn't let her develop "small dog syndrome" and become a spoiled fussy little diva. I'd watched many dog behavior episodes on television and read many articles on dog rearing and believed that, what wouldn't be acceptable in a large dog shouldn't be tolerated in a small one. I was determined. But...

My favorite thing to tell people when they ask about "typical" dog behavior is that, although I read many articles on the subject, my puppy didn't read any. She does what she does and some of it is what was predictable and some of it isn't. And, in the case of my little Hadley, she came pre-spoiled for my convenience. She didn't want to eat dog food or walk on a leash or tolerate tags on her collar or lots of other things you take for granted in a dog. It felt like I'd spent a large part of my time with her working on un-spoiling her.

I also came to believe that a lot of it was me...unintentionally, of course. I was an insecure, novice dog owner and she was probably picking up on that and taking advantage. I'd almost looked forward to boarding her while we went on vacation so that she could be handled by experienced people for a while.

Now, you know this is building up to something, don't you? When Brian and I got back from Vermont and went to pick Hadley up, we were chatting with her doctor and one of the vet techs, whom we hadn't met before, offered to go downstairs and get our dog. She asked which one was ours and when we said Hadley, she paused, smiled and said "oh, yeah, the princess." I just had to sit down on a chair and laugh.

No comments:

Post a Comment