A Serious Girl

All our Labradors have come from our long-time friend Sally, who raises both Labrador Retrievers and Cavalier King Charles Spaniels. One spring three years ago, Sally was having an exceptionally busy season of whelping puppies and was overwhelmed. We offered to keep one of her older puppies until the whelping season settled down. This was how Scarlet first came to live with us for a short time.  Scarlet had a sober appearance for such a young pup, and Sally declared her to be “a serious girl.” A couple months later we took off in the motor home and Scarlet went back home to Sally, to rejoin the pack. Three years later, a lot had changed for all of us.

We had a terrible wreck where we lost our Lab Ryder. The poodle survived but he’d gotten very attached to our big Red Lab, and was lonely. He’d also developed PTSD and without Ryder, his condition worsened and our sweet poodle boy became unmoored and anxious. Friends and our vet urged us to “get another dog to be his companion.” I was just getting back on my feet (literally), unsure of myself in a very unsettling way.  How was I going to manage two dogs with one leg? I fretted over how Chase would react to a new dog, whether it would calm him or make his anxiety worse. As I was dithering about what to do, Ben said “I’ll call Sally and see if we can have Scarlet stay with us for a while.” I’d forgotten about Scarlet.

Three years is a significantly long time in a dog’s life. For the last three years Scarlet lived on Sally’s rolling farm, rambling around with her dog sisters and swimming in the pond. She had a couple litters of beautiful pups. Sally graciously agreed to her coming to live with us. Scarlet had just finished weaning her most recent litter, so the timing was perfect. As for me, I was worried. I wondered how she would adapt to house life. I wondered if she would remember us. I wondered if Chase would tolerate her. While I was sitting around wondering, Ben brought her to the house. We let her into the back yard. Then we let Chase out.

Scarlet went nose to nose with Chase and trotted off to inspect the back yard. Simple as that. She seemed to understand the assignment. She finished her inspection then she and Chase ran rings around each other in the way dogs do. She came in the house and curled up for a nap on the dog bed. Chase stared at her and considered his options. He flopped down next to her.

From that point on, Scarlet set about mothering Chase, comforting him when he was anxious and tolerant when he acted like a pain in the butt. As he is young and a knucklehead, he is a pain in the butt frequently, but she puts up with his shenanigans.

I know I’m making Scarlet out to be Mother Theresa. She does have a saintly appearance. She approaches people gently, head tilted up so you can see her melting brown eyes. She’s a soft girl with silky ears and a squishy face. Everyone loves her at first sight. As they say, still waters run deep, and over time as she became accustomed to life with us, we discovered other facets to her personality.

Scarlet dislikes all forms of photography. She has a great doggy smile, but aim a camera or a phone at her, and her face morphs into her default mode–liquid, sad eyes and a contemplative expression that I call her “serious girl” look, as if she feels self-promotion is undignified. I took her to obedience school. Between exercises the other people would be trying to contain their exuberant dogs who were barking, spinning or other dog silliness. Scarlet would slide to the floor and wait for the next task, quietly solemn. I’d taken Chase and Scarlet to the same training center, and the instructors couldn’t get over Scarlet, especially after meeting my Wild Child Poodle. “She’s such a good girl, the perfect dog for you,” they’d coo. She is the Yin to Chase’s Yang.

She’s also quietly naughty. In her first year with us, she demonstrated an obsession with shoes, particularly Ben’s shoes. He’s lost 2 pairs of Keen shoes, 2 pairs of Merrell shoes, and two pairs of Crocs. I fared better, probably because I only wear one of two pairs. She got a pair of Crocs and ate the laces off a pair of Merrells, and “personalized” one or two of my shoes. She also did in an iPencil and a couple remotes. Another obsession is Kleenex. She can’t pass a box without taking a tissue. She plucks them and randomly drops them around the house. She is a food snitch and has been caught with her head in the dog food bin and ripped open a new bag once or twice. She’s become a seasoned RV traveler. She’s figured out that RV parks are packed with people who carry dog treats. When she meets new people she carefully sniffs at their pockets to see if she needs to resort to power begging mode. With people she knows, she is a brazen power beggar.

Scarlet has two speeds–slow and turbo. Chase hasn’t knocked me down yet, probably because I am always on alert when I walk him. Scarlet and I saunter along until something happens and BAM! She fires her boosters and takes off. Any small animal, something that appears (to her) to be a possible food substance she flings herself into warp drive. Alternatively, she pads along lost in her own world until something concerns her. Let someone walk up behind me (could be an ax murderer), or an unexpected movement (birds, leaves, unidentified things that flap). and she goes airborne to confront the ‘danger.’ She’s pulled or knocked me down a a number of times. She makes amends by letting me use her as a support to stand upright. It’s my fault really, I fall under her Buddha-like spell and am lulled into inattention until she fires her booster rocket.

Scarlet’s most puzzling quirk is that she will not get in the car. Will. Not. She will walk up to the vehicle just fine, but when a door is opened, she sits down and will not be moved. No amount of food tossed in the car, cajoling, yelling or demanding will sway her. She won’t get in any passenger vehicle. She’s fine with the RV, she just dislikes cars. The only way to get her in the car is to lift her in, but she simply resists by going limp. One night at obedience school, the trainer and I worked with her for a half hour trying to break through. No dice. I have dozens of photos of Ben struggling to get her in the car.*

As is with every dog I’ve lived with, I have a lot of alternate names for Scarlet. She answers to Sweet Potato, I use that the most. Others are Shrederella, Red Bean, Sugar Baby, Honey Pie, Peanut Butter, Baby Girl and Trash Panda. One or two times I’ve called her Red Menace, but that’s only when I’m really vexed with her, which is rare. Scarlet is a seriously good girl. I hope she likes her life with us.

*Postscript: I was just about to publish this when a miracle happened. We’d pretty much given up on Scarlet’s car phobia until we got an old Honda Element as a new tow car. Magically, she hopped up into it without a complaint.