Spoiled Little Princess

I mentioned last month that I had to put down my faithful canine companion, Gilmour.  What I did not discuss in that post was my concern how his "sister" Lainie would adjust.

I adopted Lainie from the Humane Society about nine years ago.  She's my fourth dog as an adult, and they were all pound puppies.  Lainie was a little different though.  The first three dogs all came to me as puppies, and Lainie was about two years old when she chose me.

When I brought her home, she was very timid.  I didn't hear her bark for the first couple of months.  She was also very protective of her food.  Shortly after bringing her home, I gave Gilmour and Lainie each a rawhide dog bone.  Somewhere along the line, she started to walk away from the rawhide, so Gilmour moved in and tried to take it.  She went after him as if she was rabid.  Fortunately, because she was still new to the house, I had been keeping a close eye on her and I was able to quickly break up the fight.  Fun fact:  Neither dog has touched a rawhide since that day.

The next morning, wifey was worried that the dogs would get into a fight and asked me to separate the dogs while were at work, so I put her in the guest bedroom.  (Lainie, not my wife.)  While we were at work, she got a case of isolation anxiety and destroyed the bedroom, shredding carpet, pulling down curtains, chewing window frames, and eventually busting through the hollow-core bedroom door.  (Again, Lainie, not my wife.)  When I got home, she and Gilmour were contentedly laying on the couch together as if they were litter mates.  From that time, until I put Gilmour down, Lainie had never been alone for more than a few minutes at a time.  She and Gilmour were attached at the hip (much to Gilmour's occasional annoyance.)

Lainie has always been deferential to Gilmour.  She let him eat first.  She let him exit and enter the house first when it was time to go outside.  She always walked a couple of paces behind him.  She adored him and followed him everywhere.  With this in mind, I made sure she was present when we put him down.  I firmly believe that dogs know when someone in their pack dies if they can sniff the body.  When he breathed his last, she laid down across from him and put her front paws on his, and sniffed his face.  It was almost like she was holding his hands as he passed away.  It chokes me up thinking about it.

I work from home, so I was not incredibly worried about her being by herself all day, but my wife and I do lead reasonably active lifestyles.  This means that Lainie would be left alone for an hour or two at a time.  I was a bit nervous about that the first time, but my fear proved unfounded.  When I returned, she was calmly laying by the door, wagging her tail as I walked in.  The dog hair on my bed revealed that she was laying on the bed while I was gone.  She's not allowed on the bed, but that's not the hill I'm gonna die on.  If that keeps her calm when she's alone, I'm okay with it.

My nerves kicked in again when wifey and I had to drop everything and go to see my older daughter.  My son-in-law came by to check on her a couple of times daily, making sure to stay and play, but for the most part, she was alone for about four days, and this was within a couple of weeks of putting Gilmour down.  Lainie was a trooper though, and she's proven all of my concerns unfounded.

Now that I'm back home, Lainie and I have essentially been constant companions.  She's incredibly mellow without Gilmour around.  She constantly lays at my feet when I'm seated, and dutifully follows me around when I get up.  She consistently lays on my side of the bed, and she lights up when I take a quick break from whatever I'm doing to give her a bit of attention.  She's incredibly well-behaved when we go on our walks.  For the most part, she walks next to me off leash. I only put on the leash when people or other dogs approach, and even that's primarily because it's socially expected.  She's become the spoiled little princess that I always knew she could be.