The Hairy Lunatic

The Hairy Lunatic is really Maggie, our dog. The name Maggie evokes images of a sweet, devoted family dog, which our Maggie really is. But she also really is a Hairy Lunatic. We got her from Ramona Animal Shelter after Zonga, our Kitty Boy, abandoned us for a life of freedom on the streets. But more on that later. Zonga is a whole blog post all by himself.

Maggie was an adorable medium sized dog with German Shepherd markings plus a kind of foxy-coyote-ish look and a curly tail like a Jindo, all cute and eager in the kennel at the shelter. The tag said she was about 10 months old and had been a stray. We asked to see her in the fenced yard outside - see how she acted around the kids and all. The shelter guy led her out on a leash and closed us all in together. We let her off the leash so she could play with us. She promptly ran to the fence, found a hole under it and ran back to her kennel. She liked her poopy kennel more than she liked us. We took her home anyway.

Once home I walked her into the house and she immediately took an enormous dump on the carpet. I put her in the back yard where she quickly put as much distance between us and herself as she could - parked herself near the farthest fence from the house and lay down in some bushy-grassy stuff. I went inside to clean up the dookie, and wondered if it was her way of saying she didn't like us. But before long Maggie had mostly accepted us, and nowadays she knows she owns us, and seems to view us as something of a cross between her charges and her servants.

Early on she demonstrated her gift of communication. When outside at the sliding glass door she would jump up, reach her paws as high as they would go and stand there on her hind feet looking in at us purposefully. If we ignored her she would let her claws drag slowly down the glass for that nails-on-chalkboard effect. When wanting to go outside she would do the same - stand on her hind legs with her paws up high - only now looking back over her shoulder at us to make sure we got her meaning. We thought about installing a revolving door or something, as she wanted in or out about every other minute (and we obliged her), but she has actually resolved this for herself by creating her own doggy door. She started building her door by scratching at and making minute tears in the sliding screen. The tears soon turned into small holes. She could then hook her toenails into the holes and slide it right open. The small holes grew, creating convenient large holes for easier and faster use. Now the main hole is big enough for her to gallop through at full speed, eliminating entirely the need for us to open and close the door for her. She's a very clever dog, and very considerate. We didn't really feel like putting the money out for a doggy door anyway.

Maggie has some very endearing behaviors. Here's why we love our lunatic:

~She adores socks. Doesn't chew them up, but likes to have them near her when she sleeps. If I leave socks on the laundry room floor, I will find them near her bed the next morning, usually right next to her nose. Do they smell good to her? I have no idea, but it's kinda cute.

~She eats flies, bees and wasps, or whatever flying creature is in the vicinity. She even jumps into the air to try to catch birds. At first I worried about her getting sick from eating stinging insects, but so far so good. This is mostly sport for her, I think. We do feed her other food.

~She's part cat. She loves to toy with small critters she's hunted. She has no interest in eating them. She goes out into the bushy-weedy areas and tramples and leaps around to stir up whatever critters might be hiding, just for the fun of the chase. One day I watched her play a lizard to death and then lose interest when it stopped moving. And one morning I went into the back yard and found a dead rat, which I suspect had met the same fate as the lizard. She pushed at it with her nose and walked away disinterestedly when it didn't respond.

~She prances and leaps like a pony when excited.

~She flies through the air with the greatest of ease. Seriously, this dog can leap, and it's sheer pleasure to watch her take wing while running around the back yard, or just doing a high jump over the girls when they're playing on the living room floor.

~She loves to play-wrestle, but is a sore loser. We pretend to let her win so as not to hurt her feelings. She's a sensitive lunatic.

~She's so impossibly cute when she wants something that I give her way too many rawhide bones and raw eggs and bits of meat. And many times I've nearly caved in and allowed her pleading little self onto our bed, which is against the rules.

~When she hears Dave get the harness down she is so excited she can barely contain herself. In spite of this she exerts great effort to hold herself still so he can put it on her. She's nearly trembling with excitement, but somehow manages to not turn herself inside out with joy until the harness is on.

~She likes to lick our feet, which is both gross and sweet. I think it means she's taking care of us.

~For that matter, she likes to lick everything, so maybe the foot licking means nothing in particular. She smells the chair, then licks it, smells a toy on the floor then licks it. She smells the watermelon and cantaloupe I left in grocery bags on the floor and licks them. She's also a glass licker.

~She obligingly rolls onto her back if we come near her and there's a possibility we might rub her belly.

~She gives deep groans of pleasure or tiredness or, well, I'm not really sure why. She just groans humorously from time to time, and we think it's very funny.

~In spite of her youth and high spiritedness, she has only destroyed one shoe and three or four Barbies since she came to live with us. She tries hard to be a good girl. (Seriously, my sister's dog has eaten up walls and metal pipes at their place, so I am well aware of the potential for destruction with a young, spirited dog.)

Our Hairy Lunatic is a sweet, quirky little gem. There is just nothing like the joy that a happy dog exhibits and communicates. She gives us pleasure every day.