Michael & Liz are Bloggable

I have been waiting all day to write this post. Mainly because over the past few weeks I have been blogging and commenting on Liza and Gryffin and what Liz and I are doing and there has been almost no mention of Daisy. It really came clear today what I want to say and that's why I've been waiting to blog about it.

Originally I was going to make this an actually poem the way "odes" should be but there is no way I'm going to post a poem in our blog(let alone write one) so this will just be in normal story-telling, blog, format. And no I won't sing it either.

To put it bluntly, Daisy has been taking a lot of crap lately.

We adopted Gryffin in May. She immediately had to get along with another dog in the house. She has embraced Gryffin and they have become best friends. The one problem is that Gryffin is an attention stealer. If Daisy is getting pet, then Gryffin steps in front to get the love too. If Daisy is laying near the window, Gryffin squeezes in between her and the window. Remember when I said Gryffin was a snuggler, well Daisy bears the brunt of it a lot. She graciously relinquishes her spots without any fuss or anger. She holds no grudges and quickly finds another spot just as good. Here is an example, what was originally a spacious resting place, is now a crowded, uncomfortable corner of the chair:


Now that we are taking care of Liza, Daisy has to handle more inconveniences. Daisy doesn't mind being held but she doesn't prefer it. On Sunday we all went to the Children of Chernobyl orientation picnic and Daisy and Gryffin were hits of the party with all the kids. I pretty much just sat in the grass with them as an endless line of kids sat with me in a circle to play with the dogs. Daisy was uncomfortably picked up, passed around, and one time kicked and one time dropped and she never changed her behavior. Not a human in the world contains the amount of patience that Daisy possesses and with such little animosity or frustration. Call it being a dumb dog but to me it's admirable. And for any dog owner you would understand what I'm about to say, I wish this was something I could express to her. I could just see the look in her eyes the whole time saying "well... ok... be careful... ouch that hurts... I'm not sure I like this." She was clearly uncomfortable the whole time but there wasn't a moment during the picnic did I think Daisy would have snapped at the kids. She was a true lady =P.

Like I said above, she was kicked and dropped during the picnic by a couple of the kids and she doesn't react or show any signs of snapping at them. It was so cute, the second she got kicked (although accidentally), she put her tail between her legs and ran to stand between mine. It was very precious.

She also has become such a wonderful house dog. She has not pooped or peed in the house in many many months. She never ever barks or makes a sound. She is hardly ever demanding of us in any way as far as whining or crying goes. She sleeps hard but plays hard too. She is extremely fast and loves to run around the back yard and can have a TON of energy if she gets a fire lit under her. When we have to leave the house, all we have to do is show her a treat and start walking to her crate and she'll hop in without any fuss or disagreement.

I am not going to act like we can take credit for her. I think dog behavior is hard to change and for the most part, an owners influence usually just amplifies or dulls the traits of a dog. So really I think we just inherited this wonderful animal and got incredibly lucky. But I am going to go out on a limb and say that Daisy is the perfect dog and the last month has really convinced me of that. I can't believe she's ours.


*DISCLAIMER* - I realize there are many readers who also have dogs and think theirs is perfect as well... ... ...that's cool too... we're both right.