Maggie

On a Friday night in late March, I browsed Petfinder looking for a puppy to put in the little cage I had set up by the front door. I generally performed a search on females with two breeds, Beagle and Shiba Inu. (I think the Shiba is one of the most beautiful and less well known dogs out there! But after Golden Retrievers, Beagles - with their adorable faces and awesome noses - were at the top of my dog list). There she was, a beagle / dachsund mix labeled "Daphne" by her current owner. About 11 weeks. I could meet her at PetSmart the next day if I filled out an application. (Apparently as hard to adopt a pet as to adopt a person - you practically need references!)

When I got to PetSmart I wasn't planning to adopt right away. I just wanted to see if she was as cute in real life as in the picture. She wasn't. She was more dachsund than beagle - longer than she was tall. And she was so wriggly in my arms. This puppy definately wasn't for me! But another puppy caught my eye - Miss Charley. They pulled her out, and she sat patiently in my arms as I arranged to take her home with me. Seriously, you just HAVE to leave with a puppy! All my dog supplies were still at home, so we had a precarious car ride trying to keep her still. Then another precarious car ride to another Petsmart to get more supplies.

Well, Miss Charley changed names a few times - from Pepsi to Maggie, which stuck. However, we could have also called her Wiggley or Princess (because she is spoiled), and I have always actually kind of liked Miss Charley (or just Charley).

We took Maggie through puppy classes, where she was a solid B student - thanks to my roommate's dedication at training her. Honestly, we were competing for best behaved against two dogs who were months older than her! (Puppy class also contained for us a St. Bernard puppy - that thing was huge!) Now fairly well trained and house trained, we are awaiting late August to begin another round. I am looking into moving her into agility or tracking.

I take Maggie tracking once a week or so. It consists of me crushing up a hot dog and and walking thorugh the grass, dropping bits of hot dog every now and then to keep her motivated. She's really quite good. We did a teaser agility lesson at a dog show this spring, and she was a natural at that, too. She is good at jumping, crawling, and running. Areas for improvement include staying off the couch and not chewing on our fingers all the time.

I hear that dogs learn their personalities from their masters. My sister's dog is pretty jumpy. On the fourth of July, Maggie barely reacted to the fireworks, even before we started our sensitization training (give her a treat when a firework goes off). But my sister is pretty jumpy, and I am pretty calm, as is Kristen. So we have a pretty calm dog.

(Here's the thing on my sister's dog, Ember, an Australian Shepherd, Poodle mix (Aussiedoodle). She has a psychosis! This dog will not eat, drink, or sleep if there is a ball to be thrown. She will literally play herself to exhaustion. I have seen her take a ball to Maggie and wait patiently for it to be thrown. Ember is way too skinny, but you can only tell when her fur is shaved for the summer, because she won't eat when she can play! This kind of obsession in a human would get someone committed).

Maggie has a few quirks of her own. The funniest is that whenever she has a bone (or something similar) in her mouth, she wanders around the house crying. I mean she is worked up about it! It's really sad to see her so sad. We believe that it is because she is a digging species and wants to bury it but cannot find a way to do so inside the house.

Another quirk I have to add - she likes to "talk" to the doggie in the window. In this case, it is her reflection in our porch window. She usually stares at it, wondering (we assume) why that doggie had to live on the porch when she gets to live in here. She also may wonder why she can't smell it. Tonight she did the craziest thing, though. Both Kristen and I are pretty sure we saw her offer her fish toy to the dog in the window. How sweet - they share!