Well, last nights walk was such a joy! Let me start at the beginning. When it is just my younger two and I each of us walks one of the three dogs. On occasions, such as this, our youngest gets the biggest dog, Mya. This may sound strange, but she is really well behaved (I'm talking about the dog, stay with me here, sorry Gracie). As with any being though, there may be a time when Mya sees something she needs to investigate such as a bird or groundhog. In this instance, we have instructed Gracie that if Mya is hell bent on running, let the leash go (we may not have used the word hell bent when talking to Gracie). This will prevent ER visits due to road rash, and Mya will stop and come back when we call her.
Okay, moving forward with our glorious night. All the dogs were harnessed and leashed, so on to the walk we went. Not five minutes into the walk, I see a large black dog, no leash, approaching. I immediately freeze, Gracie immediately drops her leash, and Ashley has a panicked expression as she is looking back at me, because I have the pup that prompted the question I am asking in the title of this post. Chevy and Mya are fine, and sniffing the [non member of our family] dog that they have not seen since he was a puppy. Our third, and precious, little nugget had already stiffened into protect mode. If only the other dog had stayed up with our other two... but, he didn't. He decided to come visit Janie. Seriously? can you not read her body language, or the fact that she sounded like a demon? I am pretty sure our other two dogs, and the girls, were frozen in fear because nobody was moving. Thank goodness for our neighbor, who called the other dog over to her while the owners finally made their way to get their fur baby.
By this time, I am fairly certain something ruptured in my brain because my head was pounding more than my heart. Needless to say, our walk was done, everyone was shell shocked.
Let me remind anyone who is reading this that I view all beings the same. I do not feel humans are a superior species so for me to ask a question, such as the title suggests, I am being 100% serious.
I am a firm believer that other species can, and do, have diseases and illness that are generally associated with humans. You know, like cancer, diabetes, AIDS/HIV, leukemia, food allergies, environmental allergies, etc. So for me, I do not see why it would not be just as possible for them to have mental disorders as well. I have told my family before that I think Janie has ADHD, and possibly some form of Autism. This seems extremely likely for animals to have these disorders as well.
After our stress filled event, Ashley said she would go and apologize to those people, and while I am happy to know we have raised a conscious child, I thought about that a moment. I reassessed the entire thing and told her I did not think that was necessary. Before your judgments take over, let me explain:
1. We live on a quiet road that dead-ends and only has two other neighbors.
2. We had all of the dogs harnessed and leashed.
3. We were not on the property of the business that owns the other pup.
4. Our other two pups, who were in the led, are sociable.
To explain further, just as with humans, some animals are sociable, others are not. The reasons for this are varied, and I could not begin to pinpoint any one reason. Janie was adopted as a pup and was without her biological mom at a very young age (earlier than 7 weeks), we do not know her story, or the story/genetics of her parents. We can make all the assumptions we want as to why she is riddled with anxiety and a fierce protector of us, but in reality, we just do not know. As much as some people may think, doggie school is not an option for her. Out of the eight fur babies that have been a blessing to our family over the years, only two ever went to doggie school. For the others we used the same methods and educated at home. You know, we are homeschoolers for our humans, same with the pups I guess.
Anyway, as I look back, some were sociable, others less so. For the less so ones I always felt like maybe we were bad parents. Now, I feel completely confident in saying I do not feel I always need to apologize for one of my babies behaviors just because it makes someone else uncomfortable. Don't get me wrong, there are precautions that need to be taken when it comes to safety, which I feel we do by harnessing, leashing, not taking her to dog parks, and not walking her in a high pedestrian area. Janie is highly intelligent, and knows all the commands such as sit, lay, stay, here, come, and she knows how to help herself to the water and ice dispenser on the fridge. When we take her on a walk all by herself she seems to have more control over her emotions, but when with the entire family (dogs and humans), she is stressed.
Doggie school in this situation, and with this particular princess, would not go well because she cannot focus once stimulated, and we would be kicked out, or politely asked to leave and not return. I guess some questions that I have are: why do people judge and assume you are a bad parent if your child (fur or otherwise) does not act according to societal standards, or why do people think they always have the answer? Giving suggestions or sharing information is one thing, judging, when you have no clue, is another.
I end with, yes, each of our fur babies has their own unique personality. They each want to be loved, and to give us love. They may not act appropriately for YOUR liking, when steps can be taken to adjust that we will take them, otherwise, respect the fact that they are amazing beings in their own right, with emotions, fears, behaviors, stresses and anxiety that may not always be remedied by strictness, control, school or anger. We will continue to work with our little bundle of "not the norm" emotions, but we will do it in our way, letting her know that she is loved no matter what.
*If anyone has noncritical comments or suggestions I would be open to hearing them. I do not like traditional muzzles so that is not an option, and would make her anxiety heightened. If there is a muzzle that would not make her feel like she couldn't protect herself or us, let me know.
