Long before meeting my husband, I inherited one of my best friends: Snicker. She would meet me at the door every afternoon with whole body wiggles and howls of pure joy.
She was my training buddy when she dragged me through the last mile of a long run. I could only hold onto the leash and watch her ears flap.
She was my loyal friend who started off each night at the end of the bed and then somehow found her way nestled in the crook of my arm by morning.
With such a happy, fun-loving dog, I never once considered that I’d need to be careful when I started a family.
The consideration began, however, when my husband’s niece came for a visit. No one paid attention as the 2-year-old walked over on chubby legs and grabbed firmly on Snicker’s jowls, earning her a solid warning growl.
Then came my own newborn. Suddenly, this tiny baby was in Snicker’s family home, disrupting everyone’s routines and uprooting the dog’s quiet world. Snicker sniffed her warily, unsure of what this squalling thing was. One thing she was sure of, though, was that everything was different. She also knew that no one was getting sleep anymore – even her. She became aggressive to strangers, even growling at a delivery man she’d formerly loved. One night, she growled at my husband with such ferocity, I thought she was going to attack.
Looking back on those newborn days, we realized Snicker was just protecting this new addition the best way she knew how. Snicker knew that the new noisy and smelly bundle was precious to me – so it was precious to her. But at the time, I couldn’t trust her anymore, and I was now apprehensive for my baby and for my dog. The what-if scenarios of what could happen to either one of them was a very scary possibility that I wasn’t willing to let come to fruition.
From that day on, I cracked down on Snicker anytime she thought of getting near the baby. If my daughter was outside of anyone’s arms, the dog wasn’t allowed within a two feet radius of her. In our pack, she needed to know that the baby was above her.
And, as my daughter grew more mobile and grabby, I drew hard and fast boundaries with her as well. Long before she turned 2, she knew the correct way to pet a dog. She knew that a dog was not a couch or a horse. Even so, until she was 3, the two were not in a room alone together because I couldn’t fully trust one not to hurt the other. If my daughter hurt the dog, no one would care but me and the dog. But if the dog hurt my daughter, the consequences would be devastating for everyone.
In the end, my daughter walks Snicker and makes her do tricks. She is the only family member whose fingers remain unscathed when Snicker grabs a treat. When they play tug of war, Snicker uses a gentleness that no one else experiences. And a few months ago, when my daughter went to bed healthy but got sick in the night, it was Snicker who whined by her bedroom door to alert me that all was not well.
She is a good dog. She is the best dog. She is family. But if I hadn’t laid those boundaries down for her and, more importantly, for my daughter, she may not be here today.
