But it's true. Sissy looks into my eyes with her shiny little dog eyes and wills to me to listen to what she is saying. Sometimes she is wanting my food. Sometimes she is wanting me to touch her. And other times she is not sure what she wants but she knows she wants SOMETHING. When I get home after any period of absence, she is nearly hysterical with wanting me to sit down so she can smell me and my clothes. She demands my touch and touches her nose to mine as if she is saying, "I am so glad you are home! I thought you were gone forever!" And she is relentless when she wants something. When her food or water dish is empty, she doesn't let it go. She scratches at the bowl (making that sound of nails on chalkboards) or throws herself at the tall metal trash can until she gets my attention. And she doesn't let it go until I get up and fill those bowls. LONG attention span.
Cocoa is a simple minded, somewhat blind and deaf, chihuahua/miniature pinscher mix. She was in bad shape when I found her at a pet store in Ottumwa, Iowa. At eight weeks, she didn't even weigh a pound. She actually slept in my bedroom slipper! She was infested with fleas and ear mites, and she suffered from malnutrition and some kind of doggy rickets. She grew up to be a full four-pounds of skin and bones, an arched back that makes her look like she is about to poop, and the biggest ears and doe-like eyes you ever saw. Who couldn't love her? Back then, she was totally needy, wanting to be held at all times, and I used to struggle to keep a hand on her while I typed. Impossible. Now she is a grouchy old lady, anti-social and bored with company. When she is done checking out who is at the door, you can almost imagine her saying, "Ok now, leave me alone. I want to sleep another four days."
In 2007 when Cocoa first started screaming/singing, I thought it was because she was lonely during the day while I was at work. So I found Sissy for her -- a sister and buddy for the hours alone. No go. Cocoa hated her from the start. She could have been freezing to death but she would not go near Sissy to cuddle like other animals do. Instead, she growled at Sissy when she ate out of the food dish, snarled at her when she wanted to play. Yikes! What's a dog-mommy to do? The good thing is that she has excellent hearing and that makes her a good doorbell if not a security guard. She earns her keep!
The differences between Cocoa and Sissy are like night and day. Sissy is an alert, sneaky, devious, and playful miniature pinscher who started out the same way Cocoa did: teeny-tiny. By some miracle, they are both about four pounds at their normal weight, but Sissy has picked up a serious pound since we moved to Bullhead and we just can't get it off. The startling piece of history about Sissy is that she refused to bond with me for the first six months of her life. She was alpha and it didn't matter how small she was or how powerful I was, she was not going to submit to anything.
We battled. I was close to giving her away to the one person she would cuddle up with when she suddenly became deathly ill. It was like a flu and I couldn't keep her at home. I had to take her to the vet where they kept her on an IV and monitored her until she was better. When she got home, she became my very own arm candy. She suddenly seemed to understand who I was and how important I could be. And she has not abandoned me since. She is slow to let people near her, though never vicious. She will just leave, go to bed, hang out elsewhere, rather than deal with people she doesn't know.
Sissy and I had another battle recently. It had been building up for five years but I was loathe to deal with it until it became dangerous. Sissy, like most miniature pinschers, is a born escape artist. It isn't that she wants to run away but that she feels innately compelled to step out of bounds. If there is an open door, she is going to race through it at the first opportunity. If there is an open gate, she is going to fly through the smallest gap between feet and wooden frame. If there is a wall anywhere near her sight level, she is going over it. As it happens, one 125-degree day in this desert I currently call "home," I got a call at the grocery store from my neighbor Matt who wanted to know where I was. I told him, wondering where he was going with this, and he said, "Well, I thought you should know that I found Sissy out by the dumpster on Tonto." I nearly died at the thought of her so near the racing vehicles, the wild coyotes, and the loose dogs.
He added, "Her tongue was nearly on the ground. As soon as she saw us [Matt and his dog, Ollie], she took off towards home and didn't stop until I opened the door and let her into your house."
Well, that was it. I had to take action. Much against my deepest feelings about training with pain, I purchased a training collar. I couldn't bring myself to put it on that sweet little dog's neck until I knew exactly what I was going to be doing to her, so I begged an old friend to let me zap him first. God love male friends who want to look macho. Dave took it like a man and even let me try out the different levels on him so we could try it at the lowest setting on Sissy. The door opened and out she went! Almost simultaneously, I saw her jump and yelp. She ran back into the house and peered outside, looking for the source of her pain. Nope, no one there. So she tried again. This time she got it and went straight into the house to hide under the couch, in my bed, behind the chair -- wherever she could -- until she recovered from the humiliation. From that day on, for the next month, she tested the system until she had learned the borders. She knew that she could go out the front door and into the front deck but not near the gate. She would sit on one of the deck chairs and look out to the Land Where Sissy Cannot Go with this longing stare. It was a sad sight, but I knew she was not ready to go without the collar.
At the end of the month, I was ready to try her without the collar. It was a big bulky thing and I hated it. I took it off and rubbed her neck where it had been wearing a slight dent in her shiny black coat. I told her that it was time to be good. It wasn't two hours later and she found the opportunity to dash through the gate and into the yard. After 15 minutes of chasing her (that is the part she loves), I managed to get her back into the yard where I could put the collar back on. I was beginning to think that PetSmart had lied; they said she would "get" in 2-3 weeks and here it had been a month! But, she is just a four-pound dog, with a brain of mere ounces, so I tried again two weeks later and she has made no effort to escape since then. It may be because it's just too cold outside right now, but I prefer to think that we have come to an understanding. Time will tell.
I have had Cocoa for nearly 11 years. Sissy joined us almost 7 years ago. I have lived in Bullhead City, AZ, for 5 years now and I lived in Van Wert, Iowa, for 5 years before that. People tend not to stay in touch when you make a major move like that, so I have essentially had more contact with Sissy and Cocoa in the last 10 years than anyone else - human or otherwise! No wonder I feel that at least one of them is communicating with me. I would say to Tara that at least I don't hear the TV or refrigerator calling out, "Hi, honey! How was your day?" when I get home. That would be nuts. Instead, I look forward to seeing a smiling and happy little min-pin whose sheer joy at seeing me walk through the door makes coming home a good time.
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