More Than a Dog

If you love me, you love my dog. It’s been that way for eleven years. Just ask my husband. He had the daunting task of “becoming a dog person” in order to date me. (That and kicking his two-packs-a-day cigarette habit, but that’s for another story.) Ten years ago when we were dating, he’d come over to my house in Atlanta and Libby, my gorgeous Weimaraner I rescued, would dominate the room. She had been horribly abused and left to die in a snow bank in the Tennessee mountains before hikers found her and took her to the Southeastern Weimaraner Rescue Society. I adopted her one week later—even though there were plenty of dogs there who hadn’t been abused. She just walked her skeleton frame covered in cuts over to me and slowly put her head on my knee as I was sitting and talking with the rescue chairperson. That was it—she was mine. But, I am the first to admit that Libby is a “special needs” dog.

She was terrified of many things, but especially men. When Jay, now my husband, would come over, she would run and hide in her crate, shaking, and then pop her head out to assess the situation, run over to me, in her meek attempt to protect me, and then hide her large body underneath my legs. For some of my friends—she seemed like FAR too much work. No one could take her to the park like a normal dog and take her lead off and throw balls. If a tall man wearing a baseball hat came running up—as they always did since Libby was and still is so gorgeous—she’d run off in the other direction—often into streets, to get away from him. She hates loud and aggressive people. If a gregarious person came over for dinner, someone who stomps a bit when walking or gestures with hands when speaking, she’d run and hide and shake. On the street, if a skateboarder whizzed by, she’d desperately try to run in the other direction. I can’t tell you how many dog trainers I hired over the years. In the end, after the final training school, I was told to take her to locked-in parks or dog runs and to let her walk or jog on lead only in her neighborhood and in her back yard. Over the years—being dragged into so many new environments (four cities, seven houses)—she has gotten much better overcoming her fears and welcoming new people. And, more importantly, she is the sweetest dog I have ever owned.