I have a "girlie dog" - WTF?

[QueenOfCalifornia]

Yes - I have the sweetest little dog on the planet. She gets along with all the kids in the neighborhood and her best friend is "her cat." They were raised together. I love animals of all kinds - some of you know I trained dogs for many years and worked with all kinds of dogs and other animals. I have a small dog because our place is not really suitable for a big dog. Also, I happen to like having a small dog for lots of reasons - Also - neurotic dogs come in all sizes - There are plenty of "yappy" big dogs - I felt I had to defend our small friends.

Lets hear it for the little dogs! Bow-Wow!

Tiki:


Tiki and Spike when they were babies:

[Muttocracy]

1. I think a small to medium size dog would be so much easier for travel and the girls

I love my big dogs, but they're a challenge for me to walk sometimes (maybe there are fewer squirrels on the White House lawn), and I sure can't scoop them up to carry onto a plane.

[QueenOfCalifornia]

That is

one of the reasons I have a small dog - she can fly in the cabin of a plane with me. She can stay in most hotels -

I have had big dogs - I loved them to death - but traveling with them was challenging.

My little dog has the heart of a lion. She thinks big dog thoughts :)

[CrispyQ]

3. (maybe there are fewer squirrels on the White House lawn)

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

I can't stop laughing!! My pup loves squirrels! I go out first to give them fair notice, but those that don't heed my call, end up in the top of a tree, frozen. They don't move! My pup is a love & wouldn't hurt them, but he would give them a good chase!

When I say my 'pup', he's a catahoula & a decent sized dog. My beloved pound pup.

[Muttocracy]

4. my border collie mix is OBSESSED with squirrels. nt

[Dem2theMax]

2. Pet sitter here.

I have yet to meet a "yappy big dog." LOL. The little guys? I need ear plugs. All they do is bark.
But they are wonderful lap warmers. :)

I really like most of my little guys, but I'm madly in love with the big dogs. :)

[Muttocracy]

6. same here, but if I had a house as big as the White House and I was in charge... nt

[QueenOfCalifornia]

8. I lived on a kennel

in N. CA - We had a regular who never stfu - he was big and he barked and barked and barked - poor Matthew (his name - I will never forget his name.) Matthew did not just bark, he howled and shrieked - I would go and sit with him and he would be okay - he was not good at being kenneled - his owner did not believe how terrible it was for the poor dog - This was prior to home video cameras so I had no real evidence except for the word of everyone who worked at the kennel. I begged the owner to hire a pet sitter to stay with him at his house since the dog was so stressed - I felt sorry for Matthew but I just about lost my mind whenever he would stay with us.

yes - yappy big dogs - We have one on the crest of the hill above us - He loves to yap... arf-fucking-arf whenever his owner leaves...

I also lived on a kennel in Maryland - It was a breeding kennel - German Shepherds - We had some non-stop barkers there too.... Big dogs yap in a deeper voice:)

[Dem2theMax]

17. LOL. They DO have deeper barks.

I don't blame any of them for barking when their people families leave. Poor babies. I stay in the home of the pet. So it is a lot less traumatic for them.

Where I live, most of the folks are older. So their pets ARE their babies. I had one couple who hadn't left their dog with anyone else in 13 years!
Can you imagine? 13 years.
So along comes me. Dog was so stressed, she ruptured an anal gland. That was fun. Stinky.
Now she's fine. But it took many times of staying with her before she got used to the idea of Mommy and Daddy being gone. And she's a little dog with a BIG bark. LOL. She would bark non-stop whenever I came over to visit them. Now I'm OK. Now she only barks at everyone else. ;)

I watched a 'new' dog last week, an 11 year old Maltese. She makes pig-like grunting noises when she eats.
I just about fell over laughing the first time I heard her do that. When I'm getting her food ready, I can hear the 'grunts' coming up behind me. SOOOO funny. I love my doggies. (But I can't wrestle with small dogs. And I love to play with my 'kids.' So I have to have some big dogs in there to really have fun.) :)

Here are two of my 'kids.' Chip and Dale. Their Daddy went on a Hawaiian cruise. So I took a 'vacation' photo of the dogs for their Daddy.
He loved it so much, he had me make copies. LOL. I have FUN pet sitting!

Wish I had a photo of my favorite big dog, Chelsea. She was a rescue dog. I am madly in love with her. I keep threatening to steal her from her Dad. ;)

[DrZeeLit]

13. I have a Coton de Tulear. He's about 15 pounds and he does NOT bark. Not a "yappy" dog...

I had a list of what I wanted in a dog, and he is awesome.
He has hair, not fur. Not yappy, not hyper. He's my companion. Likes to hang out with me. Is very smart.
He's a rare breed, not AKC.
He's a close in type to the Havanese -- the Havenese (sp?) will probably be black, or tan and black, or tricolor.
Coton de Tulear usually have long hair -- and that would be a drawback to young families. Lots of time taking care of that mane.
My dog currently has a puppy cut, and it works for me. That long hair took a lot of time to keep beautiful.

Anyway... had to say that... and I love this dog!

[Dem2theMax]

18. That is one beautiful baby. :-) nt.

[BeatleBoot]

5. Bill did fine with Buddy

The Lab.






And Bill was mas macho.

(I only know the comparative in Spanish not the superlative).

[nomorenomore08]

11. "El mas macho," "the most macho." All you need is an extra article, I think.

:hi:

[Ichingcarpenter]

7. My dog Chewie is the same way

My daughters dog Leon who likes Pacifiers



Leon and Chewie .....



Zen dog

[otohara]

9. Are You Taking This Personally?

just asking?

[QueenOfCalifornia]

10. Nope.

I am not a moran.

I just wanted to talk about dogs! :)

[Warpy]

12. Some dogs have absolutely no sense of scale

and I've seen chihuahuas try to take on rottweilers. I've also never known a Great Dane or Newfoundland retriever who didn't think it was still a lap dog.

However, there are some breeds I absolutely detest, probably because I worked night shift for 18 years and was subjected to serenades by bored dogs kept in the back yards of people who worked days. Chief among them is the Pomeranian, followed quickly by toy dogs of all breeds but who can all double as dust mops.

For some reason, I wasn't as disturbed by a low pitched woof as I was by a constant high pitched yapping. Little yappy dogs were the bane of my existence and a Pomeranian was the only one I had to put in a formal complaint about.

The dogs themselves were probably pleasant enough, but dogs are social animals and since they were abandoned for 8-10 hours a day by working owners, they did the natural thing and tried to maintain contact with other dogs by constant yapping. I didn't blame the dogs as much as their clueless owners.

However, one of the things I looked very closely at when I bought this house was the size of mutt in adjacent yards. Since they were all medium sized and larger, I bought this house and managed to sleep.

So count me in as someone who wants to avoid the fussy little toy yappy dog. I understand perfectly where Obama is coming from, although I wish he'd picked less sexist language.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

14. No sense of scale?

Then certainly, you must mean the biggest dog in any room, the Dachshund.

My good friend has 4, all rescues, and I love going there and getting loved by them.

[Dervill Crow]

15. Amen! I had a Great Pyrenees who never shut up!

She apparently thought her duty in life was to lounge around the yard or bouse rhythmically sounding an alarm that any potential wolves in our suburb who came near her "flock" would be met by the biggest, baddest sheepdog around. Her voice was a little deep to be deemed a "yap," but she made more noise in a day than my Staffie has in her entire 8-year lifetime. She would just look off into space and bark. That was my only encounter with doggie OCD.

Your Tiki is adorable, and so is Spike.

Here's to all the little dogs and their pets, be they human or feline. :toast: Slainte!

[ColbertWatcher]

16. I think Paris Hilton and women (sic) of her ilk gave ratters a bad name.

I think when people call them "girlie" it's because of her foufou-y treatment of them.

[norepubsin08]

19. I opt for a wiener dog!!!