My Dog Daisy

My dog Daisy was really my daughter’s dog. I had always loved dogs, and always wanted one, but my husband was not an animal person, and I never wanted to inflict a dog on him – or vice versa. I figured it would be one of the things I’d have to do without. Then it was September, and my daughter, who was nine, announced that she wanted a dog for Hanuka. The surprising part was that my husband was immediately for it, no convincing necessary. His little girl wanted a dog. His little girl would get a dog. I don’t know who was more overjoyed, my daughter or me.

I immediately began doing research. I took out books from the library listing the various breeds and their traits. Some shed too much. Some disposed one to allergies. Some were not good with kids. Some were hard to train. After hours of poring over the delightful photos and aspects of dogs I found the perfect dog for us. It was the poodle. Not a full sized poodle. I decided we needed a dog small enough for me to pick up and put in the bathtub if necessary. A toy poodle would be just right. It had short hair that didn’t shed much, was the least allergenic, was good with kids, and very smart, easy to train.

The North Shore Animal Shelter, had ads in the papers. In October they listed poodles. Oh, good. We’ll go to Roslyn, not too far, and bring home a nice poodle from the shelter. This suited our sense of kindness to animals. So many dogs needed homes, it seemed not right to buy a dog when we could rescue one from a life in a cage. We went in October even thought Hanuka wasn’t until December because you never knew if it would snow and make driving difficult. After all, we wouldn’t want to disappoint our daughter. Also, because I was so excited about getting a dog, I couldn’t wait.

The first thing we learned was that there was no poodle. Either the poodle had been taken, or as I began to suspect, there never had been a poodle, or perhaps one time long long ago there had been a poodle. But in any case, there was no poodle today. This put a bit of a damper on everything. Listlessly we drifted into a room in which a lot of small dogs and puppies were stacked in cages along one wall. We looked at them. Dogs of all shapes, sizes and colors. Some sleeping, some yipping.

A pretty black dog with long silky fur and patches of white and tan caught my eye. She was spunky, one of the yippy ones. Her tail stood up and curled over her back, the long tail hair floating down like a flag. “How about this one?” I said to my gang. The caretaker opened the cage and put her on the table in the middle of the room for our inspection.

My daughter wanted a dog. I wanted a dog. Who knew how long my husband’s uncharacteristic lapse of judgement would continue? And when he would suddenly wake up to remember that he didn’t actually like dogs, possibly disliked them, in fact. That the last thing in his life he wanted or needed was a dog? Who knew whether we would ever find the time or opportunity to visit North Shore Animal Shelter again? This was a very sweet and attractive looking dog, only twelve weeks old, a puppy. She looked bright and fun. I really wanted that dog.

“This looks like a nice dog,” I said. I could see that the children were all interested.

We took it. We trooped into the office to sign the papers. The caretaker put the puppy down in the middle of the floor. The puppy began shaking with fear.

“Is this the way the puppies usually are?” I asked naively. “She’s shaking so much. She seems scared.” The woman at the desk took one look at us, happy, expectant, well groomed. Anyone could see we were a thoroughly nice family.

“Oh yes,” she lied. “It’s quite normal.”

They gave us a cardboard box to take her home. My daughter thought about it and named her Daisy. I never knew why since she had very little white. However, Daisy it was. Most children, at the prospect of having a dog promise that they will walk the dog and care for it. My dughter was no exception. She and her younger brother both promised to walk Daisy. We all knew that my husband and oldest son would not. This was fine with me. I knew that this was a promise they wouldn’t always be able to keep, they would sometimes walk her and sometimes not, depending on their schedule and the weather and how they felt. I knew that I would be the one to walk and care for this dog, and I was okay with it.

Her long black fur shed all over the light beige carpet. She was a mix, part sheltie, they thought, which are usually smart, and part terrier which are usually stubborn. I found out later that shaking with fear is not normal, that many puppies are not fearful at all, and will come to you willingly and with curiosity. The barking continued throughout her life. She barked at everything. The entire neighborhood was safe because no matter who she saw going into who’s house, she’d bark her head off. And if we had company she’d do the same. When I later asked my vet about it and told him, “I yell at her when she barks, but it doesn’t seem to help,” he looked distressed and said, “Oh no, you must never yell at Daisy. She’s such a sensitive dog.” He added, “You can train her not to bark, but then she won’t be a watchdog. You can’t have it both ways.” So we decided to put up with the barking. After all, a good watchdog was a valuable asset. So was my vet who seemed to care about the mental and physical health of my dog more than any of our pediatricians about our children.

She barked at people, the good and the bad. Though at first this embarrassed me, later I began to think of it as a positive characteristic. Since she was such a sensitive dog and since she did not like to be touched by strangers, the barking was a good warning sign to leave her alone. Most people were quick to understand when I explained that Daisy was not going to be a “friendly” dog, and they would ignore her, letting her calm down. However one man decided that he was going to be the one to, in one miracle lesson, change Daisy’s personality from that shivering little lump of fear we took home to the trusting, fearless, friendly dog he fantasized. After two minutes of saying “Nice dog,” and other magical incantations, he approached her with his hand stretched out to pat her, at which point Daisy growled, took a defensive stance and started barking her head off. The man quickly pulled back and started blaming her for being “vicious”, then stalked off. Just as he wasn’t about to achieve a magical personality change in Daisy, I wasn’t about to achieve any change in him by pointing out that he was warned that she wasn’t “friendly”, and that he had brought on the barking by his own puffed up sense of himself and his ignorance of dogs, so I held my tongue. With most people there was no need to say anything at all. One look at the barking dog, and they all knew she was saying “Keep your distance.” And they did. After the initial barking she would lie down and go to sleep, so I never had to worry. She was by no means vicious. She just wanted to be left alone.

She was hard to housetrain. It took two years, but once she got it she was very reliable. After all the research I had done she turned out to be opposite in almost every trait I had thought I wanted, except one. She was very very smart. I was able to teach her a lot of things, and some things she taught herself. She could sit, stay, roll over, get up on hind legs, fetch, fetch her leash from where it hung in another room, (and in fact, she would get the leash without being told and bring it to me when she wanted to go out.) She also never never chewed anything except the many rawhide bones we bought her which she loved. I hadn’t known that dogs liked to chew stuff, so it wasn’t on my list of things to avoid. Shoes, socks, toys, furniture, my guitar which I left on the floor. All were safe.

Daisy never overate. I thought that all dogs overate if they had food available, but as I saw how thin she stayed I assumed she was an unusual dog and I left food in her bowl all the time. When years later I got my cats I left food for them all the time too, thinking erroneously that cats knew when to say enough and never overate. When they blew up like butterballs and my new vet gently pointed out that they weighed much more than they should and would soon develop all the obesity problems that people develop, I began regulating their food till their weight became more normal. Before one actually owns a pet one can have strange ideas that are not always accurate.

Daisy also taught herself to know the boundaries of our property. When I went out to garden she would follow me all around, without a leash, and never go into the street or the neighbor’s yard. One of my neighbors had a cat at the time, Nicky. Nicky was a tease. He would lie down langorously just where the neighbor’s property joined ours, and he would do that funny thing that cats like to do, stretch out all four paws, front paws frontwards, rear paws behind. Then he’d look back over his shoulder at Daisy who would by now be prancing around, studying him intensely, looking ready to race over and get Nicky. Daisy was an incredibly fast runner. But even without a fence to separate them, she never once ran after Nicky in the neighbor’s yard. Of course I don’t know what would have happened if Nicky had ventured into our yard. But then Nicky was a very smart outdoor cat who knew how to survive.

It was one of my happiest days when my daughter asked for a dog. Daisy lived for eighteen and a half years. But though I walked and fed her and we had a special relationship, my daughter was the only one who’s patting she enjoyed. The boys walked and played with her. They loved her and she loved them back. The odd thing was that even though my husband never walked her or tried to pat her, she treated him like the king of the pack. She waited faithfully by the door for him every evening till he came home from work, and if, joy of joys, he decided to join us for our walk, it was as if the sun had come out for Daisy. It made her so happy. It made me slightly peeved. Who feeds and cares for you? I wanted to ask her. However I tried to be goodnatured about it. After all, I couldn’t complain. I had a dog.