Jaci Dawn

If you follow my blog at all, you know we have two dogs: Don’s Very Expensive Bird Dog that I once considered the bane of my existence and Jaci’s Pound Puppy.

It’s been quite the ride and I am still learning how to be a good Dog Mommy. It’s quite a change for a dyed-in-the-wool Cat Person. I like cats specifically because they don’t really NEED me but they don’t mind any attention I might give them. And sometimes cats think they are dogs, but they remain aloof like cats.

Anyway, I am now a Dog Mommy.

When we got Murphy, the Dark Dog, I thought Hell had opened up and swallowed me. He was a dominant/aggressive puppy. He was hell-bent on ruling the house, including me. I was hell-bent on learning to speak dog-ese and thwart Murphy’s domination plans. I blogged a lot of not-so-nice things about Murphy, but in the end (with the help of dog experts like Cesar Millan’s website), I won. Murphy now defers to me in most things.

But Murphy is not compatible with a cat and I was left pet-less, a totally unacceptable state. So I decided I needed to adopt a dog of my own. I did not set out to get another bird-dog, but when everything finally came together for me to adopt, I adopted an English Setter that was a year younger than Murphy. Harvey had his own dominant issues, but he was not dominant-aggressive. He’s dominant-passive. That’s good, on the people end of things.

It means, in short, that Harvey will never challenge a human being for the dominant place. He recognizes that he is a dog and the low member of the dog/human pack class structure.

Neither dog has a mean streak.

Neither dog seeks to set up doggie dominance with violence against other dogs. They do it all through posturing.

This is good: they don’t know how to fight and aren’t out to start a dog fight. We’ve owned a dog that was out to fight. She was not funny (but in all actuality, the most she ever did was shoulder-roll another dog to prove who was the Big Dog. And the dog she rolled was a Chow-Chow with a bad rep. Chow-Chow never challenged our little bitch again. Hmmm. Maybe that’s proof that – nevermind. I’ll let your corporate mind go there, lol.

Back to our dogs. When I adopted Harvey, the people at Clackamas County Dog Control insisted we bring the dogs together on neutral ground to make sure they would “like” each other. I understand their premise. And we did that. And the dogs were fine.

At home, the dogs are… funny. Murphy is the prevailing dominant dog and he maintains his status by a lot of barking. Harvey remains a dominant male, but he acquiesces to Murphy’s place in the pack. They determined their place without a single fight. Yes, there is a little growling and snapping over shared food, but it is really very minor stuff. More noise than anything.

They take turns chewing on each other. Sometimes Murphy is down and Harvey chews on his throat; sometimes Harvey is down and Murphy chews on him. there’s always a lot of noise, posturing, and faux growling. There’s a lot of stealing, too.

Murphy has a growl language that sounds like a Wookiie. We hear a lot of that. Harvey just barks. We hear a lot more of that than we care to.

But when they are exhausted, they sack out together. Really sack out together.

You would never know they did not grow up together. They are bonded.

They are funny.

They will teach me to love dogs as much as I love… hmmm. OK, they will teach me to love dogs after horses and cats. And birds. I still like horses, cats and birds best.

Just kidding – They are very much loved by me. Even Murphy, the former dog from hell.