Very hard to believe that I won't see Aggie when I get back to New York at the end of May. Then again, I think it was often hard for people to believe what we said about Aggie, because she could be very different in different circumstances.
People who came to visit us at home could hardly be expected to believe us when we insisted that Aggie was a very quiet dog. And people who knew her on the street had a hard time believing tour descriptions of her as a relentless barker. Yet both were true.
She almost never barked outside, especially on walks or at the dogpark. Outdoors, she had a world to explore and as well as my nearly full attention. Knowing her convinced me more than ever that dogs prioritize their senses much differently than we do, placing so much less emphasis on sight and so much more on smell. Every walk was a chance to re-smell the neighborhood and no matter how many times we recircled the same blocks, she would find subtle changes in smell fascinating. New sights, such as a new building or sign, didn't mean that much to her.
The only time she would ever get barky outdoors was when I would have a long conversation with someone and she would get antsy. If I was oblivious to her obvious nudging, she would finally bark to let me know it was time to move on.
Indoors, she was equally quiet, though she would woof once or twice to come in from the patio if we had closed the door. When visitors came, however, it was a different dog. She didn't like sharing our attention (especially mine, I'm afraid), so when anyone came over, she would start barking, just to make sure she was getting enough focus. Bratty? Yeah. But also very hard to train, because who wants to train your dog when you have company over? Finally I would often have to resort to putting her on her leash indoors. Just being connected to me seemed to calm her down (well, that and having one hand scrunching her ear non-stop helped, too.)
She did not like to be separated from me. She didn't mind at all when I left the apartment, but if we were outside and I left her with someone else, she pitched quite a fit. This was especially noticeable at the vet. They tried to take her downstairs to take blood samples several times, but the ensuing struggle was impressive. As they started to take her away from me, her eyes would suddenly register sheer panic, her legs would lock, and soon all 95 pounds of her was bucking this way and that, trying to get back to me. Usually, she won.
Once she ate a bit of rat poison, so we rushed her to the emergency vet. She felt fine, and was certainly confused as to why I was acting so oddly. They took her back for testing and I went to the waiting area and continued to fret terribly. Then I looked up and there was her fuzzy snout, bounding around the corner, hurrying back to me. I had to escort them back to the testing room and then close the door quickly on my way out. (She was completely fine--she hadn't eaten enough poison to do anything. Though she was certainly less fine after the vet pumped her stomach full of carbon. Her face and chest were black with the stuff, suggesting that it had been a rather sloppy scene back there.)
Finally, our vet gave up and started just drawing blood upstairs, with me at her side.
But no matter what we did to her at the vet, she loved going there. I think that as far as she was concerned, it was just more attention.
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