One of our cast of thousands is a bad little dog. She came to live with us three years ago. We already had two dogs, but I’m a dog person. I grew up with dogs. They were my confidants, my best friends, my buddies that would hide under the house with me when I heard my mother calling my full name. (Is there anything more terrifying to a child than hearing their full name called? Any time you hear your full name, you just know it can’t be good.) I think that I love dogs because of the unconditional love that they give you. It doesn’t matter if you leave for five minutes or five hours, dogs are always ecstatic to see you return. Don’t get me wrong, I really like cats, but I am extremely allergic to them, so I don’t encourage them to come and sit on me. Besides that, I was not allowed to have a cat as a child because “they get on the table and lick the butter” (ok, so she was right about that). Therefore I never developed that close “cat person” bond with them. In fact, I was not around cats at all until I married a cat person (my ex-husband) and finally had cats of my own. So that’s why, three years ago, even though we already had a beagle and a dalmatian, I wanted another dog. I wanted a yippy yappy, jump up and down, pick-me-up-this-very-instant little dog. You know, a little dog like the ones in the movies that jump up and get the jail keys and bravely save their masters. A little dog like the ones you see in the tabloids being carried around in fake celebrities' purses. That's the kind of dog I wanted. All I can say now is that the adage holds true…be careful what you wish for. My wife agreed to this, which shows just how much she loves me. We found this particular bad little dog at the Caddo Parish Animal Shelter. They told us that she was half Jack Russell Terrier and half Rat Terrier, but to me she looks exactly like a Fox Terrier. The people at the animal shelter also told us that her name was Emily. “What a sweet name for a sweet little dog”, we thought. A sweet little dog! Hey, that’s exactly what I wanted! We gladly gave them their $50 and hurried out of the shelter before someone else snatched such a sweet little dog away from us.
Once we got home, we soon found that she didn’t answer to Emily. We tried changing her name to Rita Mae (after Rita Mae Brown, for all you non-dykes out there). She didn’t respond to Rita Mae either. We obviously had to find a name that she could own…one that fit her and that she would be proud to acknowledge as hers. In the meantime, she was tearing up everything in the house that she could reach. She was tearing up stuff that we didn’t even know we owned. She was chasing the cats, getting up on the laundry table/24 hour cat food buffet (formerly known as an air hockey table) to eat the cat food (which is, to a cat person, a major offense). When she was outside, she would chase squirrels and birds. When you let her back in, she would fly around the room, on a circular flight path, in front of the tv, around the coffee table, up on the back of the couch, and back around the room again and again. And every time she would do these things, we would say, “Stop that, you bad little dog!”. Of course, she didn’t stop. But soon we noticed that when we said, “Stop that, you bad little dog!”, she still wouldn’t stop, but she would look at us. We knew that we had found her name. Bad Little Dog. We’ve had Bad Little Dog for three years now. She is still a bad little dog and she has not slowed down one iota, although thankfully, she is tearing up fewer things. She has refined her hunting style, and now hunts like a cat, crouching in wait for the unsuspecting doves who feed on the ground under the bird feeders, shaking her rear end and stubby little tail side to side, until she pounces on her prey, who, much to our relief, always gets away. But she is nothing if not vigilant. She goes on “lizard patrol” and can sit for hours in the daylilies and roses, watching for lizards on the walls. Unfortunately, she does manage to get a lizard on occasion. She is also an accomplished hunter of rough earth snakes. Her favorite snacks when out in the yard are ants. On the nights that it is either thundering or fireworks time, she gets to sleep in our bed. She burrows under the covers, finds a leg or foot to lick and goes to sleep. She is a handsome dog. He stomach is hairless, and feels like a piece of raw chicken. We sometimes call her "Chicken Belly", which she ignores completely. I love the Bad Little Dog, even though she would never get the keys to my prison cell and rescue me, and if I put her in my purse, she would shred it in just a few minutes. She is definitely MY dog, which is fine with my wife, since she is a cat person, and merely tolerates the dogs. Bad Little Dog will sit by me for hours, sometimes licking my leg or foot, whatever is handy. She will lick for ten or fifteen minutes, her eyes getting heavier with each lick. Towards the end, the licks will get slower, sometimes stopping with her tongue still on my leg. Then she sighs and she’s asleep. She looks so cute and sweet when she is asleep. We enjoy it while we can.