The World’s Weirdest Dog Went on a Walk

I took Daisy on a walk.

While this doesn’t seem blog-worthy, if you had ever met Daisy, you would know that it is.  Daisy is one of the weirdest dogs I have ever met.  For one thing, she is funny looking.  Bean accurately describes her as looking like an ATAT Walker from Star Wars and that’s probably the best description you can give her.  She has these incredibly long legs that look like stilts and this super thin body.  We think she is part greyhound because of her shape and speed.

Which is the second part of taking Daisy on a walk that is blog-worthy.  Daisy is super fast.  She is so fast that she can actually catch squirrels in our backyard.  And she’d really nimble.  Like, she could probably be an agility dog if we were actually good dog owners and trained her right.  The speed is a problem, though, because along with being fast, she is really strong.  So, you don’t really “walk” Daisy so much as drag along behind her with your arm out of joint.

Admittedly, this is our fault.  We didn’t train Daisy to do anything.  A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G.  The girl can’t walk on a leash, can’t sit, can’t stay… nothing.  Occasionally, she will fetch balls, but only when she wants to and only for Chris.

Despite all of this, I love that damn dog.  She is just the funniest thing in the whole world.  She is insanely co-dependent and so she follows Molly and Bean around like their shadows and if she can’t find them, she carries around clothes hangers.

Yeah, you read that right.

She carries around plastic coat hangers as her comfort object.  But sometimes she accidentally gets her head stuck in them and then she gets really confused about why her comfort object is attacking her.  I mean, you don’t much funnier than a lanky, giant puppy on stilts with her head stuck in a hanger.

In addition to coat hangers, the list of things that scare Daisy is pretty long and includes anyone/anything that walks by our house.  Daisy loses her mind when things come too close to our house, which you wouldn’t think happened often, but we live on a cut-through street in our neighborhood and so this happens more than you would guess.  She also is deathly afraid of life without Bean.  If he isn’t in the house for some reason, she just walks around whimpering until he comes home… this includes all day long while I am trying to work.  Sometimes, she will go into his room and lay on his bed for a while and the whimpering stops, but mostly she just wanders around the house from room to room, whimpering for him.

So, that is the essence of sweet Daisy.  My dopey, co-dependent, anxious, not-so-smart little friend.  And I love that funny little think like nothing else.

Okay, back to this walk.  We hardly ever walk Daisy on a leash because we have a big back yard and because she’s like walking a really strong jackrabbit.  But this morning, it was dark outside and cool for the first time all year and I figured we should probably continue our streak of trying to walk her once a year.  So, I put her leash on her and we headed out the door.

And you know what?  SHE DID GREAT!!!!  She didn’t pull on her leash.  She didn’t chase anything.  She didn’t bark at anything.  She was like a real, normal, good dog.  I was amazed and so proud of her.  I immediately began to get these visions of this New Daisy and all the things we would do with her.  We’d take her arts festivals!  We’d take her to Dog Days around town!  We’d take her on hikes, mountain biking, fishing…  you know… like, if we did those things ourselves…

And as I am in the middle of envisioning this new world for Daisy, things sort of took a turn because of Halloween decorations.  Who knew that kids weren’t the only ones who were scared of Halloween?!  We were walking towards one house that had these big plastic jack-o-lanterns all along their walkway and I immediately felt Daisy slow her pace.  And then she just stopped.  I tried to coax her forward, but she was just staring at those plastic pumpkins like, “NOT TODAY, SATAN!”  I finally got her moving again by walking out into the street to what she must have deemed a safe distance, and then we continued on our way.

Until we got to this house with a little decorative bench by the front door and sitting on their bench was a life-sized skeleton wearing a black cape.  Now, even I jumped at this one.  It was kind of dark outside and you couldn’t really see the skeleton until we were really close to it.  But if I jumped a little bit, then Daisy basically flew.  That dog bounced like a rubber ball.  Seriously.  She jumped so high that she pulled my arm UP.  And then she continued bouncing until we were a safe distance past it.

Same thing happened when we passed a scarecrow in someone’s yard.  I jumped.  Daisy flew.

By the time we got home again, I realized two very important things:

1. Daisy is actually is great on a leash when Bean or Molly aren’t there to make her all co-dependent and insane.
2. Our neighborhood REALLY loves Halloween.

Oh, man.  I freaking love that dog.