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Over Christmas, we watched 4 dogs for a friend. (And her parakeet.) I have 4 dogs already. That makes 8 dogs. That’s a whole lot of dogs. The Danish person and the little girl are sort of givens in this house, and they weren’t unusually difficult over the holidays. Probably. I had 4 extra dogs and a bird around here, so I might not have noticed anyway.

I was a little scared of it, but my house is big enough and we’ve got decent, walled-off space outside for them to play, and the neighbors on both sides have dogs that bark at least as much as ours, so as long as things were reasonably under control – which they were – it wasn’t going to generate any controversy. The 4 extra dogs were in pairs, 2 little mini-dogs (Bijou and Marley), sort of Wiener-dog mixes, and 2 maxi-dogs (Shush and Tiger) that were bigger than any that live with us, hovering around 100 pounds.

 My 3 old dogs are from the New York City area, and they carry with them a certain kind of attitude that seems worrisome but works out really well. (Some New Yorkers are like this; a tough or daunting exterior when you cross them on the street, but incredibly helpful, kind people if they see that you need something. It’s not a facade, there’s real toughness, but there’s a lot more under the surface.)  

Watson is a pimpish character from Brooklyn. A cool, distant-to-strangers Rottie/Shepherd mix, he’s actually very sweet with people, but won’t take any shit from other dogs. (He was actually great with other dogs, too, until we got a second one and he had to “protect” her one time. After that moment, he wouldn’t take any shit from other dogs.) He was remarkably patient and kind to all our visitors. Ruby’s a neurotic beauty from Staten Island, and she walks around and grumbles to herself. If she were a person, she’d smoke, drink coffee, and be on her cell phone while she was getting her nails done; she’d probably take diet pills and and be a hypochondriac. She ended up chewing on the head of Tiger to scold him for getting too close while she was eating. It was a warning, there was no real malice behind her head-chewing, and the big, young hundred pound puppy just stood there while this lanky, 40 pound dog in her later years made terrifying noises and bit his head. He was very patient about the whole thing, no hard feelings. (Dogs are so cool.) He comes across as a little slow sometimes so we kept an eye on them, and it was just fine.

Sheba is from New Jersey, and she’s got a big mouth. She looks and sounds like a junkyard dog because, well, she’s a junkyard dog. If you were to poll strangers, 10 out of 10 would say she’s the scariest when they first enter our house. But she’s really all bark, and is the sweetest, most affectionate soul in the house. Even knowing that, we are surprised at how gentle and cool she was with the visitors, and on more than one occasion, she would quietly get in the middle of our dogs and the visitors if they started barking. The noisy, terrifying Jersey Girl is actually a natural peacemaker. Loki’s our puppy, he’s quickly becoming our biggest dog, but he’s a big goof. He makes scary noises at strangers sometimes, which is mostly OK with me, and there’s not a mean bone in his body.

Burt the Burd was really cool, a pleasant surprise. He’s not hand trained, but he likes being in the middle of things so he’d chatter as loud as the noise floor in the house encouraged him to. We’d drive up to the house, and all the dogs would be lined up in the window barking at us, but over the top of them all, we’d hear Burt tweeting away right along with them in the piccolo range. It was nice to have a happy little bird in the house just doing his thing. I thought our house might be too cold for him, but a trip to the zoo in Albuquerque right after Christmas alleviated my fears – their budgie exhibit is a walk-in cage totally exposed to the elements, and those plucky little characters were flying around and chattering in 28 degree weather. 

Bijou was a little sweetheart. She’d sit with me while I worked. She’s needy, in that she CONSTANTLY wants up, but she’s so small it hardly matters. My daughter loved being near the little dogs. Marley’s actually a sweet little guy, but he barks at tall people. I’m not short. There were little issues with him, I guess, but he gets along with my puppy, Loki, really well even though they’re 90% different in size. They’ve known each other since Loki was tiny, so it’s only natural. It’s very different having small dogs around, I’m not totally used to it, but I’m not complaining, they’re sweet little monsters.

There’s no pretty way to say that 8 dogs makes for a lot of dog shit. It snowed and froze and melted and froze and snow, and we had to really make an effort to keep things halfway under control. Also, hundred pound dogs leave much bigger evidence behind compared to, say, 50 pound dogs. Or 7 pound dogs. These are things you sort of understand but don’t fully grasp when you agree to take on 4 extra dogs for a little while.

The only real hassle was the smallest dog of all, Marley. He pissed all over our house. He’s probably 2 years old, and he’s tiny, and he’s unfixed. He’s the kind of dog that will jump up under a bigger dog and bite his wang and hang there, and the bigger dog will stand there, unsure what to do. If you were at a bar, and a guy who was a foot tall jumped up and bit your groin, you’d have to be careful how you handled it. On one hand, you could probably stomp him out without much fuss, but then you’d really seem like a jerk for kicking some 1-foot-tall guy’s ass, or you could let him continue to hang from your wang by his teeth, and that’s not sustainable. You’ve got options, but none of them will make you look cool in front of chicks.

So this little dog was marking all over my house, and the big dogs that live here were all a little confused. The day after Christmas, I caught him pissing on one of my daughter’s gifts, and before I could get some paper towels and the anti-dog-piss stuff, I caught Watson marking over the little guy’s mark. I scolded him, and he obviously felt bad and didn’t do it again; it’s probably been 10 years since he’s had an “accident” of any sort, but he was also like, “Oh, come ON! This little dude is jacking up my whole scene! He’s making me look bad!” Watson’s the alpha dog here, and he was as powerless to stop this little dude from muscling in on his territory as we were. His looks of informed frustration are always heartbreaking, and this was worse than usual.

One afternoon, we came home from town, and I was carrying my daughter into bed. She’d fallen asleep in the car. While I was trying to cover her up and take off her shoes, that little dog ran in and started barking at me. It annoyed me a little, because a) it’s my house, b) my daughter is asleep, and c) this little dude is getting territorial on me. (Me!) So after Sydney was secure and snug, I turned around and raised my arms and ran after him. I do it to my dogs all the time, and we bark and growl and wrestle and it’s all good dog fun, and everyone gets riled up for a couple minutes and then we all calm down again. I do it just to goof with them sometimes, and sometimes to break the ice if they seem like they’re getting too serious about something, and usually a little chasing and playing burns off their extra energy and they have fun and we bond and everything’s pleasantly calm afterwards.

Evidently, this little 7 pound dog hadn’t played with a person in quite this way before because he bolted off with his tail between his legs followed by a 30-foot trail of pee, ending in a pee-circle by the front door where he finally stopped. Anette picked him up and he looked pretty shaken up, he was shivering a little. As she held him, he lifted one paw up and looked at me as though to say, “NO MORE!!! PLEASE STOP!!!! I CAN’T TAKE ANY MORE!!!!!!!” I felt horrible, I was just trying to play a little and get him to burn off a little energy because he’s such a spunky little dude, and it sort of wrecked his day. It seemed like a pretty big reaction to 2 seconds of half-hearted chasing, but I still feel guilty.

He wasn’t at all mad at me, he let me hold him and calm him down, and he wasn’t extra-edgy with me later (little dogs seem to be good at holding grudges when they want to, and he was perfectly sweet). I’m not convinced that it wasn’t just an act – he instantly stopped shivering when we put him down and went off to attack my big puppy, Loki – and he was back to normal just that quickly. But he pretended to think twice about barking at me next time I left and returned. It didn’t actually stop him, mind you, but he pretended to have thought twice at least. And he may not have peed in the house any more after that. It’s hard to tell with a little guy like that. 

I don’t think he’ll actually learn anything from it since it’s probably the first and only time he’ll ever get chased by an arm-raised 6 foot guy in cowboy boots. His reaction was way out of proportion to what I had in mind, and I really felt bad for shaking him up, even if it was only for 30 seconds and then he instantly got over it. Me, I got a pretty valuable lesson in “a little bit goes a long way.” Poor little guy.