Figuring Out Lulu

Lulu has always had a kind soul. No matter how anxious she got she never showed any signs of aggression. In fact, she did the complete opposite. To show her aggression to Diesel, she would lick his face until he got annoyed and walked away. That’s how Lulu figured out how to get her way with Diesel.

Lulu spent the first few years we had her glued to our bodies. It didn’t matter where we went or how safe she felt there, she still always had to be touching us. Even while she is sleeping she has to be touching someone. Actually not just touching but full on laying on someone’s (my) legs. My legs must be comfier than my husbands. I wake up with her on top of my legs. Move her off (with great difficulty) and try to fit somewhere else in my bed. This happens all night. One night my husband was out of town for the night. I started off sleeping on the left side of the bed. By 3 am I was on the right side of the bed, slowly trying to sleep without Lulu laying on me. Every time I fell asleep,l she would readjust and there I was pinned again. By 5 am, I was walking around the bed to try and start over on the left side of the bed. I can’t win but Lulu’s anxiety gets the best of her and my back in the morning. This is my reality and 4 years later it’s still my reality.

Somehow, over time, Lulu’s everyday anxiety grew to become separation anxiety. If I left the house to go to work, Lulu would sit and stare at the door or watch out the window, whimpering until I came home. Even Diesel’s companionship didn’t sooth Lulu’s separation anxiety.

Lulu will not even walk down the street with my husband without looking back to see if I am coming with them. If I don’t go on the walk she walks a few steps, looks back and cries. The whole walk. Lulu also thinks she needs to bark and protect her family, while on walks. Anyone she sees she barks like crazy and will start to run up to them. Lulu is 165 pounds. Not everyone is excited when they see a huge dog barking and running at them. However, once she gets close to the people she wants them to pet her. No matter how much she wants to happily run and get attention from someone her anxiety takes over.

Not all of Lulu’s anxious behavior gives us anxiety, too. Lots of her anxiety makes up her unique personality. It makes her who she is. Without it she wouldn’t be the fun, crazy, silly dog that she is. If you mention a walk or the dog park in our house, you had better mean you are taking Lulu. She almost jumps out of her skin with excitement at the sound of those words. Once those words are spoken Lulu has to go right that min. No time to get poop bags or put on shoes. It has to be right then. Lulu will push you to the door, from behind. If you take even a second longer she is bouncing and crying with the most expectant look on her face.

Her excitement to go somewhere is only because she wants her treat when she gets home. I don’t believe Lulu enjoys being outside, still, but she tolerates it. As I mentioned previously, Lulu loves her frozen marrow bones. I am pretty sure she would happily get a job if it meant she got more bones. She loves them so much that she, literally, turns into a bucking bronco if you even say the word “bone” in her earshot. When you bring groceries into the house Lulu shoves her face into the bags as you are walking into the house with them. If she gets a whiff of beef, even if its not bones, she is instantly go into bucking bronco mode. It is really funny to see her excitement and enthusiasm, however, if the beef she was smelling wasn’t bones for her then I have a long evening of listening to Lulu sit beside the freezer, crying.

When we first got Lulu and figured out how much she enjoyed the bones, we may have spoiled her a bit too much. We knew how anxious she was and how much the bones made her happy. We knew she had a tougher life before we got her so Princess Lulu got whatever she wanted, not needed. It was almost nerve wracking to me if the store ran out for a couple of days! Lol.

Lulu is resourceful though. She doesn’t eat the bone “all the way” and then asks for more. I noticed she will appear out of nowhere with a bone when I swore I threw them all away. She will hoard her bones in bed and keep them for safe keeping. They have dog beds on the front porch where they sometimes eat bones and suntan. I hadn’t purchased any bones in a couple of days and Lulu was dying for a fresh one. There was a couple on the front porch and when we went for a walk, Lulu realized they were there. I convinced her to come for the walk and leave the bones there, for now. We live up the street from hiking trails. The 2 dogs and I went walking up the street, 5 houses, to where the trails began. As soon as Lulu got to the beginning of the trail, she did her business and started to walk back home. No trail walk for her, I guess. Diesel wasn’t done his business so I waited, calling Lulu to wait for us. She happily, trotted all the way back home, tail wagging behind her. Once Diesel was ready, we headed back home to find Lulu sitting on the porch, eating a bone, with not a care in the world. I just shook my head and laughed.

Although Lulu has many personality traits that stemmed from her anxiety, we were lucky she didn’t have any destructive behaviors. She displays every other symptom of anxiety, she didn’t get the urge to destroy anything. She has such an innocent personality.

Lots of people who have dogs with anxiety put them through training to try and counteract the response the dog is giving, by trying to replace the dogs anxious behavior with a productive behavior. Training never even occurred to me. It’s been four years and I only thought about why we didn’t look into that for her. I think it’s because she wasn’t destructive. We never trained Diesel. If he learned to shake a paw or sit, we just thought it was exciting, not a necessity. Diesel sometimes listened to our commands. Sometimes. Once Lulu got more confident in her new life, she ALWAYS listened to our commands. Even if it appeared she didn’t want to. Commands that we didn’t teach her. She even did them on her own if she wanted something from us. Lulu had obviously been trained by someone before us. I wonder, now, if she wouldn’t be so compulsive now if we had thought to add that to her life long ago. It wouldn’t have fixed her but maybe given her some strategies to learn how to focus on me and not the situation.

We’ve figured her out. She’s figured us out, for sure. She fits into our family, perfectly, compulsiveness and all.