Dumbass Dogs.

Well, we went to get the new puppy today. On the way home Sunny decided that ‘Mac’ didn’t quite fit and christened him ‘Barney’. No name changing now, we already got him a tag engraved at Petsmart. His name is set in…well, low-grade, powder-coated aluminum.

But low-grade, powder coated Aluminum that cost nearly eight freaking dollars…so he’s stuck with it.

So we got him home, and introduced him to Buddy.

Now this is something I wasn’t really worried about, but I was, shall we say, a trifle concerned.

Buddy has been used to other animals his entire life. Padme was here when he first arrived. My mother-in-law’s dog Annabell stayed with us for a week or so. Leonard stayed for a few months before buggering off (at last count, no less than five families in the area claim ‘ownership’ of him).

However, you never really know how an ‘established’ dog is going to react to a newcomer…so it was a tense experience. Barney is a miniature weiner-dog, and Buddy is a 60lb mongrel (I’m pretty sure that he may even have a little tiger in him). If Buddy decided he didn’t like Barney…he wouldn’t even have to chew.

I wasn’t really expecting any problems because the breeder guy told us that Barney was definitely submissive, and the way he acted definitely backed up the breeder’s story. So we had an established ‘Alpha’ dog, and a much smaller dog who was used to a submissive role. Match made in heaven.

Anyhoo, we pulled Barney out of the pet-carrier and showed him to Buddy, who turned into his usual hyper self. I was relieved to see that Buddy’s tail was wagging furiously. Obviously, he wasn’t threatened by Barney and saw no reason to ‘put him in his place’

So Barney started exploring the house, with Buddy in tow, like a dog that’s just discovered a new toy…until, suddenly, Barney turned and chased Buddy away, barking his head off. Buddy ran away.

Let me just re-state that in case you think it was a typo. The 9lb wiener-dog chased off a 60lb hunk of low IQ muscle.

It was then I remembered Buddy’s main talent…showing absolutely no fear of animals three or four times his size…and getting his ass kicked by animals no bigger that a gerbil.

Seriously. My brother-in-law’s has a Great Dane named Max. Buddy made damn sure that Max knew he was in his territory, and that privilege could be revoked at any time. My mother-in-law’s Shi-tzu? Scared the hell out of Buddy. Padme and Leonard (both small cats) would chase him away from his own food bowl.

As I write this, Barney is sitting at my feet, and Buddy is keeping a respectful distance.

Put these two dogs next to each other…how many would pick the daschund as the alpha?