I'm Not the Biggest Bitch in This Relationship (15 page)

Anyway, our Rascally-Boy and our Ringo-Dingo are a great illustration of the old nature versus nurture question: How much of a dog's personality is predetermined, and how much does the environment in which the animal was raised shape its personality? This is actually playing a role in helping us decide how to have a baby—through adoption or the grow-your-own (surrogacy) route. On the one hand, we adopted these dogs and couldn't love them more. We're not biologically related to them, but we couldn't imagine our lives without them. On the other hand, if we had been asked to list the qualities we wanted in a dog, and had any control over it, Ringo isn't exactly the one we would have chosen. Rascal is.

Even though Rascal and Ringo may have had different fathers, they certainly had the same mother, so at least half of their genes come from the same source. They're both little black terriers, twenty-five to thirty pounds. Rascal is handsome and winsome, with white patches in just the right places, brown highlights under his nose, and beautiful, adorable, expressive brown eyebrows; he's extremely handsome, and he knows it. He reminds us of Jake Gyllenhaal running down the beach in board shorts. Ringo, on the other hand, is scraggly and scrawny, with a white ring around his nose, and always looks like he just rolled out of bed without showering and/or got hit by lightning. He's a bit of a cross between Kramer from
Seinfeld,
Jim from
Taxi
, and Grover from
Sesame Street.

We got them at the same time and we've brought them up in the same way since the age of six weeks. However, Rascal and Ringo couldn't be more different in temperament and constitution. Either they were born this way or they have taken very different meanings from the same well-intentioned lessons we provided them.

Rascal is charming and gregarious and loving and cautious, but ultimately brave and wonderful and sweet. He will bark at a guest who comes over for dinner upon their arrival, but by the end of the night he's curled up next to them.

Ringo is sweet, too, but “special.” He cowers and shakes and scrambles away from strangers and barks at every noise he hears and refuses to make eye contact when he's not comfortable—which is often.

When there's incessant barking for no reason and one of the Daddys is about to yell “Unnecessary noise prohibited!” or get out the spray bottle, the culprit is usually Ringo. We know this because Rascal purposefully comes over to find us and quietly demonstrate that it's not him. See, what a smart dog!

Rascal is overweight (because he has two dinners every night—his and Ringo's), and he answers to the nickname “Fatty.”

Ringo is skinny (because he doesn't always eat his dinner before his brother gets to it), and timid, and doesn't usually answer at all when we call him. We suspect that he knows we want him to come, but he's usually too caught up in his own neurosis to respond.

And so, for us,
a Rascal
is anyone who appears to us (upon first glance) to be fat, playful, self-confident, bossy, or generally well-adjusted.
A Ringo
, on the other hand, is anyone we think may be too skinny, scared, stubborn, anxious, or stupid.

Are you a Rascal or a Ringo?

Rascal is always the first one up on our bed at night; he pushes his brother out of the way when he wants something. When we're not paying attention to him, he'll harrumph at us or paw at us, or pull our wrists away from the laptop, until we give in and cuddle him.

Ringo is scared of his own shadow and it took forever to teach him to follow his brother's good example and walk through the plastic-flap doggie door. The sound of the flap closing scares him, so he'd rather hold it in than jump through.

When we were potty training the dogs, we would keep them in a crate like we were told to, so they'd build up a good reserve of pee and poo, and then we'd let them outside and praise them generously for peeing and pooing on the grass. Then we'd let them back in the house for some good loving.

Rascal picked it up fast. After about a week, he'd let himself out through the doggie door, and do his business, just to earn our praise, which he loved. If we'd forgotten to leave the doggie door unlocked for some reason, Rascal would bark at us to let us know he needed to go out. He's such a good boy!

Ringo didn't quite get it. It took him forever to learn the rules. There was one time we were out on the grass, waiting for the dogs to do their thing so we could praise them and give them positive reinforcement. Rascal did it, and Ringo peed only a little. But we heaped praise on them and brought them both into the house, up on the bed.

It was then that Ringo looked at me, to make sure I was watching, and pissed right on the bed. I guess he thought the praise was for peeing in general, not for peeing on the grass.

I yelled “Noooooooo!” and swooped him up and brought him outside to do it on the grass (which he didn't). WTF. We potty trained them in the same way but one picked it up and one still hasn't! To this day, Ringo still poops
next to
the grass instead of on it.

Rascal is pretty much a dream dog. All of our friends and family agree. Why can't Ringo be the same? Life would be so much easier.

It's embarrassing when people bend down to pet Ringo, and he cowers and shakes and snarls. I'm sure people think we abuse him. We tell them he's a “rescue dog,” and everyone compassionately nods knowingly. “Poor thing, he must have gone through something terrible.” We're careful to omit the fact that we've had him for over three years and he's gotten worse over time. We're constantly making excuses for him and apologizing for his rude behavior.

In fact, often rather than apologize, we lie. When we're walking the dogs and another dog approaches, and the owner asks if they're friendly, we say, “Oh, yes, they're totally friendly.”

We know Ringo is ornery, but we hope that by socializing him with other dogs, he'll learn to be nicer. Of course, this invariably ends with him snarling and snapping at the other dog, and we say, “Oh, my goodness! He's never done that before!”

Yes, we're
those
people. Watch out for us on your next walk.

We hate it when people tell us that their dogs are friendly when they're actually not, but even more so, we hate admitting to strangers that we have a baby with emotional and behavioral problems. Don't get me wrong, we love this dog to death, we don't know what we'd do without him, and we can't imagine what our lives would be like if we had chosen another dog from the litter instead of him. He's our special little guy—our Ringo-Dingo, our Sweet Little Dingo Bear, our Dingle Jingle von Tingle. At night, when the house is quiet and it's just the Daddys and the doggies, Ringo is such a lover. He cuddles, he snuggles, he kisses, he smells wonderful, and he loves sleeping between us under the covers with his head on the pillow.

But he ain't exactly smart.

Of course, I'm sure it doesn't build your confidence much to have a fat brother who gets everything before you do and takes your cookies and toys away from you constantly. We do our best to treat the boys with an even hand, and make sure Rascal doesn't take more than half of everything (including our attention).

But, you know, dogs will be dogs, and they behave how God made them behave.

I'm sure if we bothered to watch Cesar Millan, he'd teach us that this is the natural order of things and that Rascal has just established himself in the pecking order, which makes both dogs feel more comfortable and safe and know their roles in the pack. It's also possible that Ringo might be a different dog if he had a different brother (or perhaps different parents).

Which brings us to nurture: our parenting style. It's quite possible I
made
Ringo this way through bad parenting. Early on, when the dogs used to climb up on the Daddys' bed and destroy our pillows, I would go apeshit on them. I would yell and be hugely animated and put on a big show, yelling, “This is
Daddy's
pillow! Not Ringo's pillow! Not Rascal's pillow!
Daddy's
pillow!” Both dogs would quickly scurry into their house and look up at me guiltily. I thought they'd learn that Daddy doesn't like it when you destroy his pillow. Unfortunately, I think they learned something different than I intended.

I may have simply taught them that people are unpredictable and go into huge, loud, crazy temper tantrums for no good reason. Or at least that this Daddy does. Actually, the
other Daddy
begged me to calm down and not scare them. I wouldn't listen, though. I thought I was teaching them. Who knew?! Shit.

I'll have to remember not to make the same mistake with our future (human) children. In fact, I've promised my boyfriend that I've learned my lesson and will stick to the quiet, patient route from now on.

Sorry, doggies! I was a new parent. I didn't know any better.
Other Daddy
was right.

So, for whatever the reason, or some perfect storm of nature
and
nurture, here we are with one wonderful dog and one special dog. One Rascal and one Ringo.

But perhaps Ringo is here to teach us a spiritual lesson about accepting people as they are, not just the people we
like
. And this is where we try to apply our Rascal/Ringo dichotomy to people we meet out in the world. For us, when it comes down to it, everyone is either a Rascal or a Ringo. You just have to accept them and appreciate them for who they are.

When the shopkeeper tells you that he can't let you use the bathroom because it's “for employees only” and you do it anyway and he snaps at you and threatens to call the police, it's not that he's a rude little man; he was born that way and/or brought up that way. He's just
a Ringo
. Have compassion for him and love him. He probably snaps at everyone, and when he gets home he probably shakes and barks at the noises outside his window. Maybe he had a brother who stole all of his toys and food. He's probably a sweetie underneath, and if you only took the time to get to know him, you'd understand and want to let him sleep under the covers with you.

When the skinny, stupid airline representative tells you there are only middle seats left and she can't seat you and your boyfriend together, but says, “They might be able to reseat you at the gate” (yeah, right!), cut her some slack. She's just
a Ringo-Dingo
. Maybe she had an inexperienced young mother who yelled too much about destroying pillows and made her feel anxious and scared and rigid. Give her a Milk-Bone and scratch her belly. Maybe she'll feel more secure and end up being more compassionate.

By the same token, when the waiter is tall and friendly and handsome and says he loved
Avenue Q
, he's obviously
a Rascal
. Give him a big tip.

Despite their two very different personalities, we love both our Rascal and our Ringo unconditionally. They are who they are, whatever made them this way. Rascal may be more easy to love, but Ringo is just as lovable in his own special way. We just have to recognize the dogs for who they are and look for the best in both of them.

Remember the old adage,
beware of people who divide the world into chickens and foxes, for, to them, you are surely a chicken
? (No, most people don't know that saying, either. But trust me, I didn't make it up. Just like the thing about puppies in a litter having different fathers; it's real. I heard it somewhere.)

Anyway, all this may lead you to believe that my boyfriend and I both think of ourselves as Rascals. But it's not true.

I'd love to reveal which of us is which, but that's probably a bit too personal, don't you think?

Squatting with Stella by Starlight

Allie Larkin

I know I heard the words “fully trained” when the woman from the boarding kennel called a few days before Thanksgiving, asking us to adopt Luna. I am a gold medal champion when it comes to hearing only what I want to hear, but I do remember those words. And when I think back to that phone call, I am pretty sure the words “not even close to” didn't precede “fully trained,” or “to drive you batshit crazy” didn't follow. In my mind, fully trained was supposed to mean that Luna answered to her name, sat when she was told to, peed outside like a good little dog, and possibly knew how to lie down on command. At least that's what fully trained meant in my mind. That's what I told my husband, Jeremy, while he was trying to shower. “We're getting another dog!” I shouted to him behind the shower curtain. “Don't worry! She's fully trained!” I said with complete confidence, when he poked his head out from behind the curtain, slightly panicked. “She even gets along fine with cats.”

We already had one German shepherd. Argo came to us
fully trained
at five months, and was as sweet and perfect as could be. For some reason, raising Argo from a perfect puppy to a perfect dog, in my mind, made me a German shepherd expert. I am, at least, a bronze medalist in thinking I know more about things than I actually do.

According to the lady at the kennel, Luna was not only fully trained, but she was small for a German shepherd. At thirteen months, she was pretty close to full grown, and in comparison to 105-pound Argo, she was tiny. If a 105-pound dog was easy, how much trouble could a 65-pound dog be, really? And, Luna was free. Her current owner worked too much and had to board Luna frequently at the same kennel where we left Argo when we went on vacation. She just wanted Luna to go to a good home. We wouldn't have to pay an adoption fee, or go through the home visits, fence construction, background checks, and promises of giving up our firstborn to get her, like we would if we went through an official rescue organization. If I had any doubts at all, they were completely quieted when the woman from the kennel said the magic words that would stroke any dog owner's ego to the point of compliance: “I told Luna's owner that if I had to give up one of my dogs, you guys are the people I would call.”