Dandy Doodles

Lexie

A breeder once told me about the basic difference between a goldendoodle (golden retriever + poodle) and a labradoodle (Labrador retriever + poodle):

The goldendoodle is like that guy in your high school class who everybody loved and who loved everybody. The class clown. Not too concerned about grades, just wanting to have a good time with everyone. The labradoodle, though, would be the person who was elected class president—the guy whom everybody liked and respected, who was responsible, the guy who, if there was a problem, wanted to work to solve it. So, for example, when you take a goldendoodle for a walk, she’s loving life—interested in everything, excited about other dogs she sees, just as happy as she can be. The labradoodle will be happy too, but he will be most happy if he can feel he’s accomplishing something during the walk. So he might carry a stick the whole time. “We’re not here just to have fun—we have a job to do!” That’s a labradoodle.

Lovely Lexie relaxing with her front

paws daintily crossed

I’ve never owned a labradoodle, so I’m not sure how accurate his statements about that breed were, but he was spot-on with his description of Lexie, the goldendoodle who joined our family as a pup in 2016.

Lexie possesses the personality most of us wish we had—upbeat, outgoing, optimistic, ready for fun—although, at times, it definitely needs tempering.

I learned this early on in our relationship when I took her on her first walk. As I struggled to put on her leash, she jumped and wiggled and waggled excitedly—even though she had absolutely no idea what I was doing or why. It was almost impossible to fasten the leash.

After we got out the door and I stumbled over her as she zigged and zagged down the front steps, we started the “walk.”

It went pretty well, goldendoodlishly speaking, until we passed another dog and her owner, calmly walking down the other side of the street.

Lexie began barking hysterically the moment she saw her own species—not a threatening bark, no—a bark that said, Hey, hey, hey, hey, are you a dog? I’m a dog! I’m a dog! Are you a dog? Yes, you’re a dog! You’re a dog! I can tell! I can tell! I can tell! Let’s play, okay okay okay okay?

She also begin jumping wildly in the air—and when I say “wildly,” envision her violently rocketing straight skyward about three feet over and over and over again, constantly barking, wiggling from side to side, tail wagging furiously.

Meanwhile the other dog coolly gave Lexie a side-eye and continued walking.

It was really embarrassing.

Of course, I tried to calm Lexie, saying ineffectual phrases such as, “Lexie, no! Lexie, down! Lexie, bad girl!” and, “Lexie! You’re humiliating me!” But at that moment I did not exist in her universe.

This demonstration was repeated about three times on that first walk, with her becoming more agitated with each pooch we passed. Finally, she jumped as high as she could, twisting her body around, barking wildly—and landed on the asphalt on her back! (No, she wasn’t hurt.)

After she righted herself, I crouched beside her, holding her muzzle and forcing her to look me straight in the eyes. Then I asked her a question that I knew would pierce her heart with shame: “Lexie! Lexie! Do you see any dog—any other dog anywhere—behaving the way you’re behaving? Do you?”

The answer I expected was a shamefaced, No.

But her actual response was to spot another dog farther down the street and start all over again.

Lexie was “Daddy’s dog” from the beginning. She still gets extremely excited almost every time I come in the door. Usually it’s gratifying, but it’s rather annoying to have a huge welcome-home celebration with confetti and trumpets and tickertape just because I’m back from emptying the trash.

One thing I am dead set against is having a dog that bites. I will not have it, and I don’t understand people who make excuses for keeping a dog that bites.

That’s why, early on, when Lexie would celebrate my homecoming and bounce around me, stopping just for a quick little nip at my bum, I (over)reacted loudly and said, “One thing I am dead set against is having a dog that bites! I will not have it, and I don’t understand people who make excuses for keeping a dog that bites!” Lexie soon learned that nipping was forbidden, and I soon learned not to overreact. (OK, I’m still working on that one.)

The Lexie Smile

Part of the solution was to say, “Couch!” when I entered. That meant that, when I came in the door, she was to sit on the couch to greet me. She is now able to contain her canine urges enough to manage this—but she still evidences a subliminal desire to nip. It’s revealed in “the Lexie smile.”

Yes, she’s a dog that smiles when she greets someone. It looks a little daunting, but there is absolutely no harm in it. And I think it’s one of the funniest things she does, pulling her ears back, squinting her eyes, and baring her fangs in a grotesque mockery of a human smile. When she does it, I usually hug her and say, “You know what? You’re a nut!”

One thing we’ve never been able to break her from, though, is her compulsion to eat small, flat, white objects. These objects might be a note card, a paper napkin, a scrap of paper, a dryer sheet—and, yes, even my white handkerchiefs. Drop a napkin while she’s resting under the table waiting for just such an event to occur—and, WHOMP!—it will be down her gullet before you even start to reach for it. It’s an odd obsession, and, like I say, something we haven’t been able to stop her from doing, mainly because she is so fast and so sneaky!

A typical Lexie napping pose. She has no shame.

I have started being extremely careful with my handkerchiefs, realizing that if she wasn’t going to modify her behavior, I had to modify mine. I make sure now that I don’t drop them or leave them anywhere that she can reach. Yet still she gets them and eats them! Where does she get them from? How is she doing this? I don’t know, but they keep disappearing!

Some of you are wondering how I know she eats hankies if she does it when I don’t see her do it. I don’t have to see her do it. I just have to take her out to the backyard for bathroom time a day or two after one such event, and—voila!—the formerly white hanky reappears in a condition that guarantees I will never use it again.

Lexie’s ability to process those things through her entire digestive system is amazing. And gross.

Once (again, this was early on in our relationship), I was walking her, and we came to a small white piece of paper on the sidewalk. Whomp! It was in her mouth—she was fast, but I was faster this time!

“No no no no!” I yelled as I forced her jaws open and fished the paper out with an index finger. “Yuck! Yuck! What’s wrong with you!?” I flung the scrap down, and we went on our way.

When we were heading home, I took her along the same sidewalk, and there was that same stupid piece of paper. Whomp! She grabbed it again! And this time, she swallowed it.

I could tell that breaking her of this habit was going to take a while. How long? I can’t say, since she’s now six years old and still does it every chance she gets.

Our sweet Molly

Molly

When we first got Molly, our sweet mini-bernedoodle, she too had issues with eating things she shouldn’t. But in her case they weren’t digestible, so she ended up having two surgeries, the first to remove a rock from her intestines and another one, a few weeks later, to remove a piece of fabric from the same location. Was this going to be a life-long pattern?

No. Molly, unlike Lexie, actually seemed to learn from those two experiences, and it hasn’t happened since.

Before we first got Lexie, the breeder we were working with said, “I think you’re probably a two-dog family.”

I’d never thought of us as a two-dog family. In fact, for quite a few years, I didn’t want to be even a one-dog family. But I wondered whether having a playmate would calm Lexie down. And, since we were planning to breed the dogs and sell their valuable puppies—and since Lexie hadn’t yet conceived after two efforts—we added Molly to our household.

When we picked her up—a little black ball of fur with soft brown eyes peering out from under shaggy brown brows—the plan was for us to “keep her for a couple of weeks, and, if you don’t like her, bring her back.”

Molly resting demurely on the couch.

Clever marketing strategy, that! If you have a bernedoodle and she doesn’t win your heart over in a couple of hours, you have a cold, cold heart indeed.

The best word to describe Molly is “sweet.” She is just basically pleasant natured and likes to cuddle and be petted.

The one exception to her sweetness is that she can be stubborn.

When I let the dogs out, Lexie is always the first one who’s ready to come back in. I can stand at the back door and whistle and call out, “Molly! Molly!” I can see her across our fenced back yard, head down, sniffing something.

“Molly! Come here!” I yell in a gruff voice.

She stops sniffing momentarily, looks over her shoulder at me, and says, As you can plainly see, I am occupied with something here. And, yes, I can hear you yelling loud enough to wake every human in the neighborhood. Furthermore, yes, I will come in (and then she adds in calm, measured tones) when I. Am. Good. And. Ready.

Then she goes back to sniffing.

One time I took Molly to someone else’s home for a “date.” We were going to let the date happen in the lady’s wooded yard, but it started to rain, so all four of us ended up in the lady’s garage. As she and I stood there and talked, the miracle occurred at our feet. Being experienced dog owners, we looked down, said, “Oh, good,” and just kept talking.

The lady was having work done in her kitchen, and just at that moment a workman popped out the door to get something out of his truck. He did a classic double-take as he passed through the garage—a look at the event, a look away; then the thought, “Did I just see what I thought I seen?,” followed by a look back at the festivities; and then, finally, a look at the homeowner and me chatting away. I suspect he was tempted to say, “Uh, you two do realize what’s going on here, don’t you?” But he thought better of it and kept moving. Quickly.

Molly loves “things.” She loves prancing around importantly with something clenched in her teeth. Many times it’s her stuffed penguin toy—when I arrive home, Lexie heads to the couch, twitching and wiggling and grinning, while Molly expresses her happiness by carrying her penguin back and forth and wagging her tail.

She also likes baseball caps. If you enter our house wearing one, she will greet you by placing her front feet on your legs and begging for your hat. If you know proper etiquette, you will bow forward and let her grab it by the bill. She will then prance around with it. But don’t worry, she won’t hurt it at all. She just wants to show it off.

Happy? Oh, yes! She’s carrying a ball and a stick!

And she likes to pick pockets too. When I sit at the dining room table wearing old, baggy sweats, she comes up on my left side and sticks her nose deep into the pocket. She sniffs around and wiggles her nose (I didn’t say she was a very good pickpocket) until she pulls the handkerchief out. Then she repeats her typical prancing routine.

Like baseball hats, she has no interest in the handkerchief itself. She just thinks it’s a good joke.

When she goes prancing by with a white hanky in her mouth, she immediately attracts Lexie’s attention, and, if I’m not fast enough, WHOMP! That hanky is on its way to an abhorrent but inevitable outcome in a couple of days.

I just thought of something. You don’t think they’re ganging up on me, do you?

Copyright 2024 by Steven Nyle Skaggs