We are ruined

When we adopted Peanut, she was our first rescue dog. Prior to that, I always had dogs from breeders. Even before I got Peanut, I always had a strong urge to just bring dogs home with me whenever I saw an adoption event or a poster advertising "Free to a Good Home: One Bad Dog".

Peanut must want to be an only dog, because she has completely ruined us. Here are some critical lessons that she taught us:

Animal rescues  are very creative in breed labels. If you have spent any time looking at dog adoption websites, you have probably see a "Brindle lab mix" that's clearly a pit bull and "German Shepherd mixes" that are 30lbs. I don't know how rescues decide to label a dog, but they seem to tell you what you want to hear versus what you can clearly see (like trying to cover up an aggressive breed in the mix).

Peanut is half Dachshund...according to her humane society ad. It's funny how she doesn't resemble one at all, but it worked to get me to adopt her because I adore Dachshunds. I always thought they only re-labeled dogs with bad breed reputations and I'd be safe getting a "Dachshund-mix" because we lived in an apartment at the time. Lies, all lies.

Here's an actual Dachshund-Hound mix, look how adorable!

I could never be mad at this face

Rescue dogs are so much more work than a puppy from a responsible breeder. This may not be true across the board, but we thought we were getting an "easy" rescue dog since it was a young puppy. I had to put more work and time into training Peanut than I did training my previous dog who was a large dominant male Doberman...and even after all that, she still has annoying behavior issues like licking people's ears when they sit down in the house (doesn't that make you want to come over?).  A large part of it is that she's a hound and they just aren't programmed to obey like a Doberman and I keep expecting that level of obedience from her.

Here's the main reason why Peanut has ruined us for other dogs: She has been instrumental in training our kid to be horrible with dogs. 


Exhibit A:

This comprehensive list of things to avoid is actually the blueprint for how Faith and Peanut interact.

Avoid bothering dogs when they are eating? Peanut actually will WAIT for Faith to come and join her.

Peanut likes when I rub my butt on her food, I promise.

We even had a week when Faith would feed the kibble to Peanut, piece by piece. By this point, I tell Peanut "Go eat" and then Peanut looks from me to Faith for confirmation that she can go. I have no idea when I lost my status as alpha in the house.

Avoid taking a dog's toy? What about if the dog brings it to the kid?

My blanket, my bone!

They have both been caught with each other's toys:

It's consensual, I swear

Oh....this isn't my toy box?

Avoid grabbing ears? Well, how else are you supposed to make your dog into BAT DOG?

Ready to fight crime!

Avoid bothering dogs when they are resting. But that's when it's easiest to pull at their whiskers!

Psst...Peanut. I think you need to shave.

Why does Peanut keep closing her eye before I can touch it?

Avoid climbing on dogs. Whoops.

Mommy, I think Peanut needs CPR after that run.

Avoid tail pulling? Well, what if your ear is really itchy?

Ahhh, that's the spot. 

I think the only thing on that list that Faith doesn't do is yell, but she does squeal. I laughed so hard when I first saw that graphic because it's not everyday you can find something with so many "Don't!" statements that you break everyday.

I imagine that Peanut will help train our next kid to be just as awful with dogs as Faith. Don't get me wrong, we try to correct the behavior and explain how to interact with dogs correctly, but having such an even tempered dog has made it hard for us to show her "why not". Peanut won't even excuse herself and go upstairs, she just lays there. The only thing that has ever made Peanut draw the line is when Faith decided to see what would happen if she stuck her finger up the dog's butt. Yeah, that got the dog's attention.

Yeah.

Since I don't think there are many dogs out there with Peanut's toddler tolerance level, we won't be adding any new dogs until Faith and FNU (first name unknown) are at least 4 years old. That is how I've been referencing the baby, FNU. It has a nice ring to it, Fah-new, and if my husband slacks on picking a name we can always go with that. If he or she turns out to be a terrorist or criminal, that will really miss up someone's computer system.

On the chart above, do you break any of the rules on the people side? I think sometimes break the rule about "Avoid bothering when asleep" but only if my husband is snoring. Then he's basically asking me to poke him.