So I’m walking Clancy to the park for her regular take-a-dumps, and a guy in a wheelchair zooms by. Now my beagle is an easy goin’ gal. She loves kids, doesn’t mind folks on bikes, people throwing footballs…whatever. But for some damn reason, the sight of someone is a wheelchair sets off an intense barking and growling fit that seems to orignate from the pits of hell.
And I always feel sheepishly guilty.
For no damn reason. It’s not even like when your kid makes an inappropriate remark…“Geez mom, that lady sure is big!!”. The dog is not expending ANY cognitive energy in analyzing the situation. Yet I feel guilty. I’m always reminded of my cousin Meg, who also had a beagle (Drake, now at the Rainbow Bridge). She would tell me, with this look of sheepish guilt on her face, “He barks all the time at black people, it’s really embarrassing”
Of course, then the dude gets out his radio controlled toy car, sets it down in the parking lot next to the park, and zooms his car all over the empty lot. Now the pooch is ballastic. It’s as if she just figured out that the company that makes pig ears just went out of business.
For a short while, we had a cat who just loved being in guy’s laps.
She also loved to knead.
Guess where her paws usually were? :smack:
I’d find myself apologizing for the cat turing the poor guy’s… er… equipment… into sieves, and feeling bad about it! Even though it wasn’t me using their family jewels as pincushions! :eek:
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My beloved bichon Spunky loves to go for rides in the car. However, when we’re in the car, he barks at every man he sees. It doesn’t matter if they’re walking on the sidewalk, in other cars, even in busses, if he can see them, he barks. Some people laugh, some bark back at him, some make snide remarks, but sometimes he scares people. (He sounds bigger than he is.) It’s embarrassing, but fortunately, we don’t take him in the car too often. Silly Spunky.
My doggie has a couple of these. One, she hates motorcycles. Couple this with the fact that she has a deep, booming, truly alarming bark, and what happens is this:
She’s in the back of the truck, or in the cab hanging out the window if she’s been good. Motorcycle comes along, typically not seeing her. She doesn’t go nuts immediately; she waits until the poor cyclist is RIGHT NEXT TO HER, then unleashes a WOOF with the terror-inducing properties of a cannon-shot.
Thankfully, no one has ever actually fallen off a motorcycle, but I’ve seen many wobble to the point that I could sympathetically feel their adrenaline.
The other thing she just started doing since she got old: She slobbers. A lot. When we’re out in the park, she’ll get slobber-fangs hanging six inches off her jowls. It’s disgusting, and it always happens when that cute girl with the border collie is there. I feel fairly certain I have no chance with her (even though our dogs get along) since she petted my dog’s head and got a handful of slimy, viscous dog-juice.
That’s my embarrassing doggie story. And I should follow it up by saying that I love her dearly, slobber and all.
Good grief. Either I need better glasses or a new monitor.
I thought the title was “beagle Quilt”, and imagined this thread was about a puppy pile on a cold winter night, or the Peanuts version of “101 Dalmatians”!. :eek:
My parent’s dog assumes any man he doesn’t know is an axe murderer, so when they have guests over the for the first time, he usually alternates loud barking and hiding. It’s really annoying. Also, after he’s finished the barking/hiding, (after about 3 hours), he tries to assert dominance by sitting on them.
This wouldn’t be a problem, but the dog’s a long-legged weimeraner/border collie, and weighs 55lbs. My parents tell him he’s a cocker spaniel, so he has illusions of lap-dog-ness.
