05/04/2022
Foxy's her name and she's a Pappyjack (Papillion/Jack Russel cross) - we think anyway, she's a rescue.
Now living with a dog is very different to just meeting them through friends or out and about. Needless to say, I became totally enamoured with Foxy, who wouldn't?
I loved taking her to the park and really enjoyed her company around the house but did start to notice that she would often just ignore whatever I said and do her own thing. I talked to the canny lass about this and she pointed out that I was treating her like a cat - you have fun together when you both feel like it and then just f**k off and do your own thing. Yeah apparently dogs don't work like that and that's when the learning started.
First up was that I can't just be a dogs friend, they want and need a defined relationship, preferably with human in charge and the dog looking to them for leadership - you can do the other way around but bad things generally happen then, as dogs have their own unique form of etiquette and thoughts about how things should go down.
So that was a fun, and hard time, I had to switch myself around to how I dealt with Foxy and sure enough, there was almost immediate change. Did I feel good about it? F**k no, it was really hard to make that change, it was against my own nature but seeing how she responded so positively to the change was what really baked my brain - she was happier, more engaged and more relaxed. Basically, she could step down and not worry because she trusted in me to look after things.
Did I f**k up at times? Yep. Was I inconsistent at times, yep. Did it matter? Well...
To Foxy, no not really, we were constantly improving our relationship and friendship but here's the kicker. We'd just had a great walk, Foxy was off leash just sniffing around, there was no-one around so I sat down on a bench and rolled a smoke and was letting her do her thing, then I heard the barking.
I don't know exactly what happened as I wasn't looking but it was Foxy's bark I heard initially, that small dog yapping aggressive bark. Somehow I'd missed seeing another guy with a big dog on a lead and Foxy had run up to him. She may look cute but she's a sassy bitch and had barked right up in the face of this guys dog, that's where I turned around and saw this dog just take offence and go for her - no barks, just f**k you Im gonna bite you in half, which they easily could have done. Every credit to that guy who pulled his dog back and had it under control. Foxy immediately backed down and went submissive but this dog was amped up now and was going for her and it was all my fault. I strongly believe that if that dogs owner hadn't pulled his dog back, Foxy would have been savaged, and ultimately that would have been my fault.
I've no idea what the dog was, what issues it had that the owner was trying to work through but my carelessness created a world of trouble for them and could have gotten my dog seriously injured or killed.
So that's when s**t got real. And also fascinating.
