The question of this column is, “Why do small dogs think they can boss everyone around?” The answer is they have a power over us.
Here is our situation: We have two dogs that are best friends but worlds apart when it comes to how they see themselves as part of the family and in the dog world. Left to his own devices, Toby is a calm yet ever-watchful 80-pound Great Pyrenees. He likes to patrol. He barks at coyotes, fire department sirens and the theme music of most sitcoms. His favorite place is the couch. He’s aloof with other dogs. At the dog park, he can take them or leave them. This, of course, is how he is when he is not under Maisie’s spell.
Maisie, our 12-pound Chihuahua-terrier (terrorist) mix, sees the world like the Avengers. Evil is out there, even on our neighborhood road, and her role is to defend her territory. Her territory is anywhere she’s ever been in Santa Fe or on the road. (We took her on a road trip once to visit family in Minnesota, and she immediately assumed it was also her territory.) Sensing a delivery person or seeing another dog dare to walk in front of our house, in seconds, she can go from peacefully sitting on one of our laps to furious “Let me at ’em!”
Her secret weapon is she somehow has enrolled Toby to join her. Toby has become her “muscle,” her enforcer. She barks, he barks. She sprints to the front door; he sprints: It’s the Chihuahua part of her that I am convinced has some powerful ancient American magic.
Nowhere is this more evident than on our walks. If it were just Toby and I, it would be a pleasant stroll, greeting other walkers and their dogs. But with Maisie, let’s say she alone has turned walking on our road loop into a strategic exercise.
First, there is Bella, our neighbor’s peaceful Lab, who, as an elder dog, simply wants some time outside soaking up the morning sun. But seeing Bella relaxing in the yard drives Maisie into a frenzy of barking and biting her leash. Like Tim Robbins in the Shawshank Redemption, who patiently dug a tunnel out of his cell, Maisie believes that with enough time, she can chew through her leash and get at Bella. The funny thing is that one time she did get loose, she ran to Bella, stopped, and noted Bella was bigger than her and Toby was still on his leash and she ran back to me. There is a lot of bluster in her.
Due to our “lap dog” terrorist, the rest of our walk consists of avoiding other people and dogs at all costs. Our neighbors and I have developed hand signals and tactics to avoid encounters. I point and mouth, “I’ll go up this driveway until you pass.” Or one of us will just decide to turn around and walk the other way. The key is to do it before Maisie sees the other dog that dares to be walking on her road.
The hard part for me is that all the other dogs — labs, Australian shepherd, and golden retrievers — are well-behaved.
My other tactic, if Maisie sees someone approaching and begins to strain at the leash and go psycho, is to use treats and lots of them. (And some begging.) If it is just a human on a walk, treats actually distract Maisie. And if she’s distracted, Toby is chill.
If it’s a dog, there’s a good chance they will both wrap their leashes around me, basically disabling me, and chaos will ensue.
All this is because of a small dog who believes in her heart she is a queen, large and in charge — the boss.
Of course, we put up with all this because, well, we love her. As I mentioned, she has that magical Chihuahua ability. She sits on your lap and stares into your eyes, and it’s mesmerizing. It is powerful enough that I have occasionally lost track of time, and I hear this voice in my head: “Do things my way, and the world will be a better place.”
So we work with her and keep her leashed on walks (we apologize a lot!), but in the end, she’s our dog, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Hersch Wilson’s latest book, Dog Lessons: Learning the Important Stuff from Our Best Friends won second place in the Santa Fe Reporter’s Best Book by a New Mexico Author contest. It’s available at Collected Works and online.
