Living With a Slightly Neurotic Dog

Our Bailey at 9 weeks old

For six years Bailey has been a very important part of our life. We bought her as an 8 week old pup from a kennel in Missouri. After a long search in the Phoenix area we could not find a cocker spaniel pup or cocker mix anywhere locally, at any price. Shipping a puppy in the belly of a plane would not have been our first choice, but was the only way.

Her travels to her new home might have been part of the reason she is a little off, a little different from other pets we have owned. Because of a flight delay and a missed connection, when the puppy arrived at the freight shipping office at Sky Harbor, she was a wreck. Her water bowl and tube were bone dry, her food dish overturned and empty.

As we lifted her from the shipping crate she was shaking uncontrollably.  She promptly drank the contents of a full water bottle and then part of another. She gobbled down some pet snacks as if she was starving. While I drove home, Betty sat in the back seat, holding her tightly to her chest.

She did adjust rather quickly to our home. There was a large backyard for exploring. She was affectionate and learned to use the doggie door almost immediately. Having 4 dogs before her, we are experienced pet owners. But, she has taught us a new level of patience with some of her unique personality traits.

For example, She refuses to eat her food out of a dog bowl. Early in her life, she was still so nervous that we had to hand feed her and then have the rest of her food on a plate. There was a level of trust we needed to establish before she would willfully begin to eat. "Priming her pump" with a few handfuls of food from us would be enough to get Bailey to eat.

Unfortunately, that habit has never gone away. Now, she will eat from a small salad plate, but not a dog bowl. She usually will not make a move to the food unless Betty starts her out with something from her hand. I can't do it, it must be Betty.

My son-in-law is not one to over-coddle dogs. Rightly so, he says she will eat, from a bowl, without hand feeding, when she is hungry enough. Early on, she went 3 days without eating because we tried that approach. Never again. I am sure she would eventually eat the food put before her, but we aren't willing to test that theory or put her through that trauma, so she gets her dinner on a small plate. 

Hiding from some imaginary threat

She remains a nervous animal. Training and even time with a dog shrink hasn't changed her tendency to shake. Almost every day we take her to a park for a good run and doing her doggie business. Just the 5 or 10 minutes in the car on the way to and from a park is spent in constant shaking. Even with Betty holding her tightly, she seems worried that we will abandon her by the side of the road! 

When we took her on RV trips, she would never lie down while the vehicle was in motion. Sometimes that meant 6 hours, sitting upright between us, shaking. Once we got to a campground she loved it. All the new smells and things to explore made her very happy; the to and from was just not her thing.

After a tough day on RV travel, Bailey was ready for a nap

I guess this is a sign of how much she loves us both, but Bailey will not take a walk around the neighborhood unless both Betty and I accompany her. Try as we might, unless one of us is holding her leash and the other a few "poop" bags, she won't walk farther than the front lawn. That does make things a little difficult when both of us aren't available. But, Bailey stands her ground. She will wait until our schedules permit dual walking.

Bailey is a barker when there anyone walking past the house, delivery trucks unload or the pool service man down the street gathers his supplies. As I am typing this, our next door neighbor is having a garage sale. Big time alert from Bailey!

For protection of our home, that is just fine. But, her nervousness carries it to a whole new level. Again, training has done little to dampen this habit. Either she runs out of steam and stops, or we give her a few shots from a spray water bottle to break her concentration. 

Even with all the problems or special traits, she is a very important part of our satisfying retirement. We can't imagine waking up without her happy wiggles and licks to our face, her joyous reaction when we come home from shopping, or her insistence to lie at my feet wherever in the house or backyard I might be.

Come to think of it, Betty and I have enough personality quirks to make Bailey seem quite normal ! But, that is a subject for another post........