I have a timid dog. It isn’t even mine. She came with the territory, so to speak, when my daughter took her home from the library.
I trained the dog to sit, stay, come, heel…the whole shebang. She follows me everywhere. Trips me when I’m trying to leave my bedroom by laying right in the pathway. And turns her back on me if I don’t meet her demands for a snack.
But the one thing about her that really bugs me.
She hates to be hugged.
All her little siblings who passed through my life were huggable dogs. They’d enjoy jumping on the bed at night and taking it over. I got used to sleeping in a form not dissimilar to a question mark just to accommodate their little (or big), unmovable bodies.
Not her.
She prefers to jump on the bed, demand I pet her in some weird way that never seems to satisfy, then jumps off a few minutes later in a huff.
So what I’d like the dog to know is that, if I need a hug, she should be willing to let me do so. It’s not a daily event, even.
After all, I have to put up with all of her annoying little idiosyncrasies, she should put up with at least one of mine.
