Dogs Are Better Than Netflix

By Amy Fernandez

I was talking to Lourdes the other day. Yes, I realize our breeds have NOTHING in common but… that’s the gist of this story.

Now that social options are winnowed down to barebones, people are suddenly noticing the quirky charms of their dogs. That stuff has always been there, of course. But this global catastrophe has put everyday life under the microscope. Suddenly, the family dog is a treasure-trove of entertainment and knowledge. Possibly, that’s overstating things but there’s not much else to do.

I’m loving it! Like when someone proudly informed me that their Golden RETRIEVER excels at fetch. Those revelations are clearly overdue, but priceless nonetheless.

Granted, everyone loves their respective breed but for way too many diehard fans this loyalty has been anchored to superficial attractions. However, as the quarantine grinds on, they are belatedly discovering the ticktock underneath those good looks.

So we’re chatting on this and Lourdes mentioned the notorious oral fixation of Sporting breeds. That behavior works to advantage in the woods but can become problematic at home. And that’s the thing–even dog people sometimes face a learning curve in this respect. Sad but true, and knowing your breed is no fail/safe preventative.

“I’m just looking at my TV stand with all the corners chewed off. The doors originally had little wooden knobs.” Admitting that it’s metal or nothing with her breed, she adds, “My friend’s Akita never touched anything but that’s not their work habit. They are guard dogs.”

I love it when Lourdes is on a roll.

She says, “Some Herding breeds will literally drive you nuts unless you find a job for them. I had a friend with Shelties. If she had people over it was hilarious. Everybody was bunched up into a corner before they realized what they were doing. She never taught them to herd the houseguests. It’s just their work habit.”

Then again, switching breeds does temporarily mitigate the expertise gap.

 “A friend of mine had been in the breed forever. She was realistic, thinking-long term as she got older,” Lourdes says. The first big leap from English Setters to retired track Greyhounds went smooth as silk. A few more years down the road, it was time to really scale down.

“She thought and thought about it and one day she calls to say she decided to get a Peke. Okay…my aunt had a Peke and it was adorable. She put out her feelers to her show friends and bingo, she found a retired adult–just what she wanted. And she loves it. But she wasn’t used to little dogs. First off, she loses it in the house a few times. After awhile she got a neighbor kid to help hunt for the dog. “

By this point in the conversation–after spending a lifetime in Toy dogs, I knew this 911 was no emergency. The Peke was predictably, comfortably ensconced into some unfathomably tiny space, oblivious to the heart attacks it was causing. (Try this drill with an ancient parent, two senile dogs and a clueless plumber).

“You know those tiny little grooming tables?” she asked me. “Yes, Lourdes, they comprise about half the luxury furniture around here,” I said. We work dollhouse scale in the Toy Group. Essentially, all that basic grooming gear that’s become an extension of your hand after 40 years…well, for this poor woman, it was not working.

She said, “The nail clipper thing was pretty funny. The Peke wasn’t gonna wear them down like the big dogs, so she knew she had to clip the nails. And she gets out this giant guillotine clipper…The whole toe went through it! Your brain is just wired to think giant economy size for everything. It was quite a readjustment!” Needless to say, despite the speed bumps, it was true love.

And that’s the point we’re trying to get across here.

It’s sometimes hard to grab the big picture when your mindset is locked into familiar terrain. Yes, everything sucks at the moment. But we wrote the book on workaround!  Failure is not an option. So don’t tell me that you are not using this downtime to plan some spectacular breedings, and that’s exactly what you should be doing because all this is going to add up to some new respect for purebred dogs.

Okay, I’m way past my word limit but definitely not the end of the Fernandez/Fernandez commentary!

Short URL: https://caninechronicle.com/?p=182807

Posted by chesliepickett on Apr 27 2020. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.