At least every other day (or so it seems), I read someone’s story about their Golden Retriever carrying a pair of undies into the living room in front of company.
Honey also has the attraction to walking around with a pair of scanties in her mouth. We’re just lucky she hasn’t yet done it when someone is over.
But it got me thinking about the many ways your dog can embarrass you. And that took me back to Agatha and Christie, my “starter dogs.” They taught me everything I needed to know about humiliation, frustration, and embarrassment.
We adopted Agatha and Christie from the Philadelphia SPCA when they were around four months old. By the time they were six months old, they had developed a new habit. But only when company was over.
They would prance into the living room and set up under the crystal chandelier where Agatha would hump Christie for a good 20 or 30 seconds. Then she’d stop and Christie would hump Agatha.
This continued on for some minutes until both dogs were tired and our guests’ mouths were full of flies caught while gaping at the spectacle.
I can hardly blame my guests for their reactions. It’s not every dinner party that ends with incestuous, girl-on-girl action.
Have you ever been embarrassed by your dog? Do tell.
Roxanne @ Champion of My Heart
Well, my dogs embarrass me a ton, but I think the best / worst thing I witnessed was at friend’s house. She was helping me with a college project, and her teenaged daughter was in the living room with her boyfriend. We saw the family’s Airedale racing down the stairs and into the living room with something in his mouth. Ahem, feminine hygiene product. You’ve never seen a MOM move so fast to intercept the dog before he could mortify her daughter. The speed and agility of her pursuit is Olympic-medal worthy.
Pamela
Now that’s love! My mom would have let me be mortified in front of my boyfriend. 🙂
Jan
Agatha and Christie probably thought you wanted them to be the evening entertainment.
Pamela
They could have just played piano.
Abby
Our Australian shepherd was regrettably racist. She was friendly to almost everyone–except visitors or friends who were a different race from my family. It was extremely embarrassing! We were aware that we just hadn’t done a good enough job socializing her as a puppy.
Pamela
Good lesson for the next puppy you raise.
We had a different experience with our dog Shadow (at the top of my header). We adopted her at 10 years old from the SPCA and didn’t know much about her family. But we suspect they may have been African-American. Why?
Every time we approached a young, black man on a walk, Shadow gotten suddenly excited and started wagging her tail. She was usually a pretty calm dog so this excitement really stood out. 🙂
Kristine
What a great story! I’d love to see the expressions on their faces. On your face! How do you handle something like that with grace?
My dog embarrasses me all the time but I don’t think anything she has done – yet- can really match up to incestouous canine porn in the living room. Not even the time she stole a sanitary pad from someone else’s bag in the middle of agility class and ran around with it like a prize. I think the other woman was a lot more embarassed than I was, unfortunately.
Pamela
Thanks to all the wonderful stories and videos about Shiva, I have a perfect picture of her trotting her “prize” around the room with a bounce in her step and a happy look on her face.
As for the porn show–my friends who were willing to step over the young men smoking blunts on my front steps were pretty unflappable. The ones who would have been most put off by the bump and grind show were too scared of my neighborhood to visit. I guess that’s something to be thankful for.
Although I’ve never really wanted a video camera, I do wish I had captured that behavior for posterity. 🙂
Mike Webster
@Pamela: I have no memory of this. I do believe I’ve blocked these images out completely. I’m very happy now.
@Kristine: Incestuous canine porn. . . now there’s a search term I hope no one ever enters into Google.
Greyhounds CAN Sit
Agatha and Christie sounds like they were great characters and I’m sure they were just trying to help you entertain your visitors:)
I’ve been embarrassed many times by my dogs over the years but there was one incident with Chloe, the dog I had before Frankie, that made all previous embarrassments pale into insignificance. While I’d love to tell you about it as it was extremely funny as well as embarrassing, I just can’t bring myself to do it, lol. It just might be too much information!
houndstooth
Oh, I can’t even count the ways our dogs have embarrassed us over the years! Hawk was probably the best at it. I recall being in a pet store with him when he became terrified of a tiny, five pound white Maltese or something of the like. He was almost eighty pounds of muscular dog, and little white dogs terrified him. This particular day, he reared up like a wild stallion, bucked around, knocked down a dog food display and then stood there looking like the poster child for the ASPCA. Oh, and after all that, he decided to hike his leg and pee on the sign. You know, as a show of his masculinity and to show that he still had his cool. Our other Greyhound, Treat, just stared at him in horror, as did I. I could have hung him by his leash that day!
Skinny Fat Kid
Izzy embarrasses us constantly, but I wonder if she thinks the same about us! “Mom, I can’t believe you’re wearing that out of the house to walk me!”
Izzy was so excited to greet one of my friends one day, that she turned around and jumped on me, pulling my shirt down. Whoops! Good thing it was one of my girl friends!