I have a dog. She is a Miniature Schnauzer and her name is Sophie Anne. We named her Sophie because Schnauzers are German....and Sophie is my favorite German name (I mean....way nicer than say...Helga, right??). Her middle name is Anne.....with an e. Named after my favorite literary character ('Anne of Green Gables') and Steve's favorite literary dog (Little Ann from 'Where the Red Fern Grows'). Sophie was a tiny little 4 pound bundle of fur the first time I laid eyes on her. I bought her from a little old lady who lived in down-town Nashville who had bred her own Schnauzer and had a litter of three. Sophie was the only girl...salt and pepper and nothing but PRECIOUS!! She shivered and snuggled up into my arms (and my heart) when I went to look at her....and nothing doing but I had to bring her home with me. She was only 6 weeks old and she required a TON of work those first few weeks. She cried a lot....and wanted to be held constantly!! She was very stubborn to potty-train and it took a good two months to get her piddling outside EVERY time. It was like having a small infant in the house again!! She'd wake up at 2am and need to piddle. She'd wake up again at 4:30am and need to piddle again....wanting to stay up and play each time and whining and crying when I'd put her back in her crate for safe-keeping while I got some much needed sleep.
We had to keep her in her crate when we weren't constantly watching her because Miss Sophie is a chewer. A horrible chewer. We tried putting her in the guest bathroom....because there's much more room for her to exercise than in a crate.....and we left piddle pads for her to go on. She chewed them to bits. She pooped out blue plastic piddle pads for days...which scared me. I mean, plastic isn't GREAT for the digestion, right? I swear this puppy is half-billy-goat!!! She'll chew/eat ANY thing! Including my brand new leather shoe, a book, a magazine, several puppy toys, stuffed animals, the carpet runner at the front door, the quilt on my bed, and the baseboards in our bathroom.
Not only is she a chewer and a billy-goat who'll eat anything....she is a barker. She barks incessantly!! I've bemoaned more than once, "HOW did we get such a rotten yappy dog??" Scolding her doesn't work. Holding her and trying to comfort her doesn't work. She just continues to bark. We finally gave up and bought one of those bark collars. I hate putting it on her....but we only had to use it once or twice.....and she got the message after only a few shocks. Now, we just put it on her without even turning it on.....and it still works. She won't bark when it's on......and I'm glad because it breaks my heart to think of her getting "shocks"....even if they are only mild and supposedly harmless.
She's smart as a whip....can learn tricks and do all sorts of things....IF she wants to. But she has a stubborn streak a mile-long, a mile-wide and a mile-deep. She can 'Shake" when you hold your hand out and reach for her paw. But she doesn't want to. She HATES shaking hands. She will squint her eyes and lower her ears and look so humiliated when we force her to shake our hand. She will sit there until we give the command about 10 times, then reluctantly, she will slowly put the paw up for shaking...along with a heavy sigh of resignation. She is so willful that giving in and shaking hands with us on-command just tears her up!!! But once she shakes, we're always careful to praise her and pet her and act like she just won the Nobel Peace Prize.....and the second and third shake are usually a little more forthcoming. But she still HATES it. The look on her face speaks volumes....she looks at us like, "REALLY???? Shake? Really? But WHHHHHY must you humiliate me so?" It's sort of funny. Sort of. But we figure that she really needs to know that she needs to mind us.....especially for safety's sake.
Because she's NOT good at minding either. I can say, "NO!" when she's digging in the yard and she will look up at me like a willful toddler and go right back to digging. I can say, "STAY!" when we are outside and she wants to run out into the road......and she will look at me...then take off running as fast as she can for the road. I can say, "Come in! Sophie! Come in!" and she will look at me disdainfully and plop down in the grass....as if to thumb her nose at me. Some mornings, she just refuses to come back in and I have to go out and chase her around the yard and bodily carry her back inside. I think she thinks it's a game. It is NOT a fun game for Mommy.
Yes....I said "Mommy." My husband is "Daddy." We've become THOSE people. People who's children have grown and left home and we've adopted a puppy to be our surrogate child. We talk to her like she's our child. Mommy and Daddy again.....to a furry little child with behavior issues. ;) Seems familiar (except for the furry part!) hahaha!!!
Sophie is EXTREMELY jealous and honestly believes that she should be the center of attention at ALL times. If Steve and I are hugging....she will nose up in between us. If we're on the couch sitting together...she will sit on top of us both. She wiggles between us in bed.....and if we're standing in the kitchen, sneaking a smooch....she will sit at our feet and whine and bark until we usually end up laughing. When Jaron comes over, she can't STAND it when I give him hugs and when I love on him. Jaron likes to sit on the couch with me and I will rub his back or sometimes just hold him like I used to when he was little.....and it makes Sophie INSANE with jealousy. She barks at him. She pushes him away with her head. She growls at him. And it's hilarious because Jaron will invariably say, "She was MY Mommy FIRST!!" and Sophie will cock her head to the side and look so affronted that he usually ends up picking her up and petting her....which makes it all okay. She loves Jaron....she just doesn't want ME to love Jaron! Jealous little pup!!!
She's a lot of company for me when Steve is traveling and I'm home alone. I love coming home in the evenings to her sweet little face....she's always so excited to see me! I'm greeted with puppy kisses, and she gets so excited that she jumps up and down like she's spring-loaded! She sits on the couch with me and we watch TV while I pet her. She follows me upstairs and watches guard while I exercise every morning and evening.....she follows me to the computer and sits on the rug beside me while I check my Facebook and look at Pinterest.....activities that she will tolerate only for a short while before coming over and poking me in the leg with her nose until I give up and pet her instead. Just like my kids when they were toddlers....she even follows me to the bathroom!!!
She loves to jump into the bathtub. She's the first dog I've ever seen who likes getting a bath. She liked it more when she was smaller...and would jump into the tub and bark at me to run the water for her. If I didn't oblige right away, she'd pounce her front paws on the side of the tub and bark some more....like a spoiled toddler, stomping her feet!
If she is tired or in trouble, she will try to hide behind the curtain in the office. It's hilarious! She thinks that no one can see her and is always surprised when I find her. I've taken several pictures of her hiding behind the curtain. Cracks me up every time!!
We have a very sensitive smoke detector and every time I cook....even if I just boil a pot of water on the stove, the steam sets off the smoke alarm. And it's VERY loud. Ear-splitting......and Sophie HATES that smoke alarm. Every time I turn on the oven to pre-heat or get a pot down from the pot rack to put on the stove, she makes a run for it. She goes and hides under our bed....peeking out warily until the stove and the oven are safely turned off and we're sitting down to eat. Then she'll crawl out from under the bed to come sit on the end of the couch and watch us eat. Watch us take EACH bite. Staring at us like she's starving. We won't feed her table food....she only gets premium dry dog food...but that doesn't put an end to her begging.
Speaking of begging....she LOVES ice cubes. Every time we put a cup up to the ice dispenser, she's right there, begging for a piece of ice. And she always gets one. Because we're suckers for her sweet little face...and ice is just frozen water...so it won't hurt her. If we get a cup of ice without (Heaven FORBID) giving her a piece, she barks at us accusingly until we relent and give her a piece. In the grand scheme of things....it takes so very little to make her happy. :)
Every night...before bed, we have "love-time".....which means that I climb into bed and she climbs in with me and rolls over for me to rub her tummy and tell her what a pretty and good and sweet and precious little doggie she is. She won't hardly go to sleep without her tummy rub. It's become our nightly ritual....and it's soothing for both her and for me. So much love and affection.....such sweet puppy kisses!!! No matter how crazy and awful my day is.....she totally makes me happy again. Once her tummy has been sufficiently rubbed and she has been sufficiently praised for being wonderful....I roll over onto my tummy and she curls up and snuggles into the small of my back or behind my knees and we go to sleep. I really don't know what I'd do without my Sophie Anne. <3 She's a one-in-a-million. She's rotten and spoiled and stubborn and precious and sweet and affectionate and I wouldn't have her any other way! <3
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