On the morning of Sunday, May 5, my husband and I were in Saugatuck, MI, having breakfast outside a charming little restaurant. We were enjoying the last day of a splendid weekend spent with my favorite photography group, when a woman from the Allegan County Animal Shelter walked by with the most adorable little white dog. The woman said it was a female Havanese mix, estimated to be about 10 – 12 months old. And she was up for adoption. I absolutely was not looking for a dog. But, for me, it was love at first sight.
My husband
didn’t feel the same way. But before we
finished the three-hour drive home, he was on board. In fact, he chose her name as he drove –
“Hannah.” Little did we know that he
would soon put “Horrible” in front of that name!
On line, I
read that Havanese are difficult to housebreak (an understatement). Well, she had “accidents” in our house on a
daily basis, and we’d been taking her out about every 90 minutes. She seemed to want to just sit on the
sidewalk or lie in the grass and look around.
Then she’d come in and poop. I’d
never been so frustrated with a dog.
And the
little darling had separation anxiety like nothing I’d ever seen before. During her second week with us, we left the
house for about five hours. When we came
back, I was horrified to see our kitchen blinds chewed into pieces on three
windows and bite marks on a few of the others.
We’d left her in the kitchen with three baby gates keeping her on the
wood floor, but she knocked one of the gates down. So we had also potty accidents in other rooms. Since then, she’s always in her crate while
we’re gone.
She has
other bad habits, as well. She jumps
really, really well. Like from the floor
to the kitchen table with one leap (and, no, she doesn’t have long legs). She ate my sushi when I got up from the table
to hug my son after a visit. And the
other day, she ate some moldy cheese that I put on the island counter, intending
to throw out. Yes, she’s gotten into
lots of stuff in places where she never should’ve been.
Oh, and she
loves to chew. She got my reading glasses
and did such a good job on them that I had to guess what some of the scattered pieces
were from. And while she was on the
nightstand, she ate an entire container of my shea butter. She also chewed the toes off a doll I bought
for our granddaughter. And imagine my
horror when she chewed a disposable razor that she dug out of the trash (yes,
she’s a garbage picker – we now have new waste baskets with lids). I thought what I saw on the floor was a piece
of foil. But, no, it was the actual
blade, all bent up and, somehow, without Hannah's blood on it.
Hannah also runs
away every chance she gets. We can’t let
anybody in the house until she’s been leashed, because she squeezes out the
door like a little rat. The last time I
chased her, I thought I’d have a heart attack.
The only reason she stopped running was to sniff another dog’s
poop. That’s when I tackled her and
almost fell into it. She’s just plain
rude in so many ways. She breaks into
rooms by body-slamming the doors. Or she’ll
slam into me, when I don’t let her off her leash to chase a squirrel. The papers from the animal shelter said she
was turned in by a police officer. It
figures - she was probably in jail, because she’s definitely a criminal.
So why is
she still here? Well, she’s the most
loving and loveable dog I’ve ever had.
She bonded with me instantly, as if she knows I’m the one who saved
her. She follows me from room to room
and even stays up into the wee hours with me.
And we’re making progress with her rude behavior. We found an excellent trainer, Kat Stevens (KatStevensDogTraining.com),
who has us using a clicker (it really works!) to make Hannah pay attention to
commands. This week, we’re working on
door etiquette. No more running out the
door or jumping on visitors. And we’re
making progress with her potty behavior. Hopefully, we can “click” her into a perfect lady,
like her sister, Maddie. (And then we
can call the carpet cleaners in, even though we’re doing an admirable cleaning job
on our own.)
The bottom
line is we love Hannah too much to give up on her. And when I make a commitment, it’s for
good. In the meantime, I’m using humor
to get us through this rough patch. (Hannah
has a Twitter page – it’s: twitter.com/HannahHavanese) She’s a spirited and special pup, and from
the moment I saw her, I felt like she was supposed to be with us. So we’ll just keep clicking her rudeness
away!
