repost: she’s a mystery to me, published 6/18/2016

From what I understand dogs are usually pretty straightforward.  Unconditional love and loyalty, even if you forget to feed them dinner.  Overjoyed if they’ve got a chew toy of some kind.  Sort of in a permanent state of happy happy joy joy.

But our Phoebe…our Phoebe is full of mystery.  Some of them are pretty perplexing ones, too.

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We’ll start off with the fact that she purrs.  Well, it’s not exactly a purr…it’s sort of a cross between a purr and a grunt, and it’s a sound Phoebe only makes in moments of true bliss.  I was a bit startled the first few times it came out; if you’re not paying attention it can sound almost like a growl, and Phoebe’s growls are nothing to play around with.  But eventually I got the noise down and now I love to hear it – it means my baby is happy as a clam.  (Sorry for the mixed animal metaphors.)

As for what makes Phoebe Phoebe, we’re all a little fascinated by her mystery DNA.  We know she’s got lab in her, but she’s definitely a mix – we just don’t know what she’s mixed with.  She has that reddish nose and copper colored eyes and her legs are long and spindly, kind of like a deer.  She’s on the smallish side for a lab, so that’s probably a clue.  On a side note, we’re pretty sure she’s lived with cats because some of her mannerisms are just too similar to ignore. Besides the purring, she has the licking her paws down along with a stretching that reminds me of my own Siamese cats growing up.

I won’t horrify my sweet Phoebe by going into this in depth again, but I continue to find myself mystified by a descendant of the wolf family that is horrified by her own gas.  You can read more about this particular quirk here if you’re interested.  ‘Nuff said.

And last but certainly not least, I have somehow found the least food motivated dog on the planet.  Granted, Gracie’s insatiable appetite for all things regardless of their actual relationship to being edible set me up to expect dogs who will eat anything, all the time.  This couldn’t be farther from the truth with Phoebe.  Anything I drop from the cutting board barely hits the floor before Gracie scoops it up, but Phoebe?  It’s hit or miss whether she’ll even wander over to sniff out what’s landed, and half the time she won’t end up caring.  The dog even skips a meal occasionally.  Skips a meal.  This would be considered cruel and unusual punishment in Gracie’s case.

Phoebe’s definitely a quirky little thing, which is probably one of the reasons BrightSide says she and I were made for each other.