By Hilary E. Fairbrother
If you've walked past our house and been enthusiastically barked at by approximately 24 pounds of Italian Greyhound, we'd like to introduce - and apologize for - Josephine and Madeline, better known around our house as the Littles.
Josephine, or Beans, is 12 years old and has reached the stage of life where she is mostly blind, mostly deaf, and entirely old-lady sass. Madeline, or Maddie, is 5 and is what we affectionately call a spinner. She has a genetic condition that causes her to spin in circles. Only to the left. Why left? We have no idea. Maddie has her reasons.
Both girls came from Marchwind Farms in Vienna, Georgia, and both began life destined for dog-show stardom. And both, by about six months old, had managed to flunk out.
Beans is bowlegged.
Maddie spins.
And thus ended two promising careers in the glamorous world of competitive dog showing. They were relegated to the life of ordinary family pets—which turned out to be extraordinarily lucky for us. We are very happy that they are ours, and even happier that they seem to have decided we are theirs.
Italian Greyhounds are an ancient breed, with a history stretching back more than 2,000 years. They are the smallest of the sighthounds, built with the same long legs, deep chest, tiny waist, and improbable elegance of their much larger relatives. They are graceful, delicate-looking dogs with extraordinarily long necks and an uncanny ability to fold all of those legs into a surprisingly small package.
We affectionately call ours our "cat dogs."
They sleep - a lot. They love warm blankets and soft furniture. They don't fetch because apparently retrieving something you were foolish enough to throw away is beneath them. They have very little of the traditional "dog smell." And they are champion snugglers. If there is a warm lap, blanket, pillow, or patch of sunlight available, an Italian Greyhound will find it.
They are also, allegedly, not supposed to be big barkers.
Maddie missed that memo.
Worse, she apparently decided that barking was an important life skill and taught it to her older sister. So if you walk past our house and hear the Littles sounding the alarm, please don't take it personally.
In Maddie's case, she is simply a little high-strung and has thoughts about people walking near her house.
Beans has a better excuse. Since she can no longer see much of anything, we suspect she may be attempting to develop her own version of sonar by barking at the world and waiting to see what happens.
Unfortunately, she is also mostly deaf.
So there may be some flaws in the system.
These days, our once-would-be show dogs spend considerably less time worrying about conformation and considerably more time perfecting the arts of sleeping, snuggling, barking at innocent pedestrians, spinning left, and keeping their humans exactly where they belong.
They may not have become champions.
But to us, Beans and Maddie are exactly what they were supposed to be: our sweet, ridiculous, elegant, imperfect little cat dogs.
And we love them with all of our hearts.
P.S. — One More Dog Who Needs a Little Love
While we're introducing the Littles, we'd also like to introduce Penny—who is considerably less little.
We found Penny wandering in a hospital parking lot and brought her home with us. We haven't been able to find her family, so for now, we're fostering her while we search for the forever home she deserves.
Penny is about 55 pounds of extremely good dog. Her official breed is Mutt, although we suspect there are several breeds represented on the committee. She is housebroken, walks nicely on a leash, listens well, and is wonderful with children and other dogs—including little 12-pound dogs who are quite certain they are in charge.
We've taken Penny to the vet and gotten her vaccinations up to date. She wasn't microchipped and, unfortunately, tested positive for heartworm, but she is otherwise healthy. Her heartworm is being treated, and she is scheduled to be spayed early next month.
Most importantly, Penny is just a really lovely dog. She is sweet, well-behaved, and remarkably easy to have around. We would happily make her a permanent member of our family, but one of our sons is allergic to her, so Penny needs someone else to be her person.
If you've been thinking that your home might be missing approximately 55 pounds of sweet, slightly mysterious, hospital-parking-lot mutt, we'd love for you to meet Penny.
She found us. Now we're hoping we can help her find you.