A Letter From The Executive Director


Why are we so obsessed with what breed dogs are?  What answer do we think it will give us about the dog standing before us or the picture we are looking at?  It is most assuredly the first question we ask, what kind/breed of dog is that?  I get it all the time with a true blue mutt. 

She is a beauty, no denying it.  She has the coloring of a husky, the flowing hair of a golden retriever and the squared floppy head and ears of a Great Pyrenees.  People seem to flock to us to find out what “kind” of dog she is, and to touch her secondarily.  I want to say, she is a timid dog is what she is, and you running up to her with your face forward and hands extended really makes her uneasy, versus this big black dog standing right with us, that is a lab and would love for you to pet him.

The next thing we often hear is, I want one just like her, which makes me laugh.  I love my Daisy Mae, but she is far from the easiest temperament  you can come by.  She is smarter than a dog should be with an intellect that defies her species. 

She knows how to open any door and window that is not securely locked and some that are.  She can sense from a mile away if someone is insecure with themselves and the result is that she is not so assured of herself.  People picture her as a big, fuzzy teddy bear that can be fluffed and cooed over.  She would rather roll in something stinky and stick to the pack she knows (me and her big dog brother.) 

The lab (here we go again with the breed) rarely gets the same attention other than people who want to tell me they have never seen a lab that big (115 lbs) or that they know a lab that is even bigger or that he has to be some other breed than a lab because he is giant sized. 

I am not saying that you will have never heard me say “gotta love a lab.”  I have, and I will surely say it again.  Not that Montana (yes, named because he is the size of a mountain) didn’t come with his, let’s call them idiosyncrasies as well.  His story is too long to go into, but let’s just say this old boy was the stereotype of dominant male with the girth to back it up when we came to be in eachother’s lives. 

But after several months of diligent expectation setting and reinforcement of good behavior, he is a breeze.  If he has a neurotic bone it is hard to find.  Do I actually think that is because of his breed?  No, not at all.  I think it is because he most likely had more time with his mama when he was a pup and got to enjoy all of the calming hormones she produced, versus Daisy who most likely was stripped from her mother at a dangerously young age. 

He is as confident and she is insecure, and they share the same human mama and same environment, same expectations.  I kind of doubt that either of their ways of being has to do with their breeding or "mutting" in this case.

Every now and again when I am sitting in the office at Almost Home and someone has just adopted one of our canine charges I hear, in reaction to “what kind of dog/cat is it?” someone with good humor and true love for their new companion say “dog/cat.”

It isn’t that they don’t care.  It actually seems to me, in these situations, it means that they really do care.  They know that every animal comes with its own history, its own temperament and of a species that is probably more dominant than most any breeding can effect.  They are dog/cat, and that is ultimately what I love about them all.




Previous ED Messages

August, 2009

September, 2009

November, 2009