Crazy Dog

My Greyhound Lizzie is a little fruity. I think neurotic is the best word to describe her, really. She drives me absolutely batty with her ever changing phobias, but my husband adores her (as do most men; go figure) so we keep her around. As a coping technique, I’ve found that laughing at her neuroses makes them more palatable, and she doesn’t seem to mind so it works for us. We’ll have had her for 2 years this Christmas and she does something new every week that I find “entertaining.”

Usually when I come home from work, she follows me around wagging her tail like a helicopter rotor – around in circles smacking everything in its way. While she’s doing that, she bounces on her front toes and wriggles her nose and whines. She knows I hate whiners, but she whines at me anyway. Crazy dog.

So yesterday I came home from work and she was not intertwined in the sea of fur that met me at the door. I called her name and she peered at me from the living room with a wild look in her eyes. I waded in her direction through the high water of happy hounds that were clinging to my legs, but she turned with her tail tucked and scooted into the dining room. I shrugged and led the rest of the herd to the back door so they could go outside and do their business.

Lizzie followed at a distance and hovered in the doorway to the kitchen watching the open door as I encouraged her to go outside. She was having no part of me so I walked away from the door. She ran through the kitchen and out the door like she was being chased by an angry mob. I just shook my head.

While the gang was outside, I went upstairs to do my own business and I saw the cause of Lizzie’s angst – the door to the master bedroom was closed! To Lizzie this would have been equivalent to being kicked out of your favorite social club. The poor dog already has extremely low self-esteem and then someone screwed up the morning routine and told her she was no longer worthy of the large, master bed. She could no longer snuggle the memory foam pillow, or nest the down comforter. She had been emotionally battered and had all day alone to fret about it!

Armed with the knowledge of what was causing the issue, I went downstairs and let all of the dogs in. It took some doing to coax Lizzie through the door (it actually took an extra milk bone; go figure), but I did it. The bigger step was getting her to go upstairs… She already hates staircases, but couple that with the fear that I was going to taunt her with the closed master bedroom door and you have one devastated dog.

I ended up playing a game; I chased her around downstairs until she had no choice but to climb the stairs to get away from me. I ran up behind her and watch her fly into the master bedroom. She heard my footsteps behind her and fell to the floor in her trademark submissive crouch: “The S-Dog.”

Picture this: a 75-lb dog lying on the floor with its tail tucked so far under it you don’t know it has a tail. Back legs are hunched under the tummy, left hip plastered to the floor, and as your eyes follow the spine, you see it curved in a graceful s-curve up to the shoulders, first to the left and then a gentle sweep to the right where you see the right shoulder of the dog plastered to the floor. The neck has the same, sweeping arc back to the left where you see the dog’s nose tucked under the left shoulder, with the front legs askew at awkward angles keeping the whole sculpture from tumbling over.



Now I knew we had a grave situation. Lizzie doesn’t contort herself into an S-Dog unless she’s seriously upset. I backed off immediately and sat down quietly about 5 feet away from her. I turned my head away so I wasn’t looking at her and I softly sang her name. “Lizzieeeeeeee, crazy Lizzieeeeeeeeeee. Why do you curve yourself so?” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her soften the harsh curves of her S as her hip and shoulder slowly raised from the floor. I kept singing, “Don’t you know, its just so, your back shouldn’t bo…”

She moved her front paws until they were aimed toward me, and then she started to slowly crawl in my direction. Her nose pointed straight to the floor, she opened her eyes and looked up with the hint of a mischievous twinkle. I was getting to her! I slowly turned my body toward hers, still singing, “It’s a silly thing, this chicken wing, and you should just let it go.” She crawled close enough to reach out and smack me with her paw. I smacked her paw back and she smiled at me; she had forgiven me.

We smacked each other some more and I gave her some tummy rubs; she in return gave me some happy air-snaps. Suddenly, she jumped upright and ran to the master bed where she threw herself prostrate across the pillows with a dramatic flair and let out a huge sigh of contentment. Crazy Dog. Think she knows that she had me at hello?