The Madness of my Expat Dog

Anyone who knows anything about my dog, Padfoot, knows that he is really weird. He has many fears and very strange tastes. After 4 years with my beloved half-brained pup, I have become so accustomed to his idiosyncrasies that I often forget that they are weird at all. This came to my attention the other day when I was talking to Emily and said, “Well Padfoot doesn’t like when people touch his feet.”

Now, if I had said that about a human, that wouldn’t be so odd, but as I typed it out and took a good look at what I had just written, I realized how incredibly ridiculous it is for a dog to have a foot phobia.

I started thinking about Padfoot’s many likes and dislikes and how some of them nearly conflict. For example, Padfoot absolutely loves being wet. When wet, he will leap around in a fit of pure joy, sprint in circles and jump on and off furniture like a kangaroo on speed. However, if he sees you with the dog shampoo, he will cower in fear and look at you sadly throughout the whole bath, as if he is saying “Why mommy, why do you hurt me so?”

When I explained this to a friend, she made a very good point. Padfoot is exactly like a human. He wants the end result and does not want to work to get there.

Other examples of his madness:

Snow

When snow is on the ground, Padfoot will bound through the fluffy piles of iced goodness with complete reckless abandon. Padfoot will even hop on a sled with you or chase you down a hill while you sled. He doesn’t care that snowballs form in his fur, making him look like a little dwarf abominable snowman, he just loves playing in the snow.

Padfoot loves sledding

However, if that snow starts falling from the sky, it is a whole different story. One minute he is happily digging a hole in the snowman I have just created and the next he is angrily growling and barking at the falling snowflakes. The falling snow absolutely infuriates him. He cannot be subdued; he becomes determined to snatch each and every snowflake out of the air. It’s pure insanity.

Soccer Balls

Padfoot has issues with lots of balls. He hates basketballs and ping pong balls with every fiber of his tiny being. He gets nearly as worked up about kickballs. He adores tennis balls and footballs. Soccer balls are the middle ground. If you give Padfoot a soccer ball, he will jump on top of it, seemingly amused by its size and his need to use his entire body to make it roll. He has a blast.

Now, if that soccer ball is in his presence, but not his possession, we are going to have a problem. When Padfoot sees people playing with a soccer ball, he becomes completely overwhelmed. It is as if nothing in his life has ever mattered more than getting that ball. He will bark, whine, pull, fight – anything to get that freaking soccer ball.

His Harness

Because Padfoot has a tendency to lose his shit over pretty much everything (See snow, soccer Balls, Spanish speaking dogs), he has a harness that wraps around his chest instead of his throat. This became a necessary item once he started barking and choking himself so fiercely that he would vomit.

Padfoot actually loves this harness. I don’t know if it is because it symbolizes a walk or if it is due to his ability to feel like a human walking on two legs as he rises into the air, barking and depending on me and the leash to suspend his tiny body in the air. Either way, he gets pretty pumped when I get it out.

Putting the harness on is a whole different battle. As I mentioned earlier, Padfoot does not like to have his feet touched. The harness has to go around both of his front legs, so touching his feet is pretty unavoidable. Putting his harness on tends to become a silly dance of him repeatedly jumping on my legs in excitement and then backing away as I reach for his legs. Once I get him to lie down, he will continuously tuck his legs under his body, trying to hide them from me.

So, in case you guys were wondering if Padfoot’s relaxing stay with my friends in Argentina while I was in the US mellowed him out at all – it did not. Padfoot’s craziness lives on. He also has his own instagram.