Lazy Germophobe

  I assumed that as a life-long dog lover, I understood dogs. But our rescue pups’ behaviors threw me for a loop.   First there was Opie, who walked off a van in a Kmart parking lot in early January 2015 after living his first seven months in South Carolina. He was timid and subdued at first—totally expected, of course. After he became more at ease and seemed to be settling in, we noticed he kept showing us his teeth. By his posture, it was quite clear that he was not “baring his teeth.” This was . . . different.    It looked more like smiling.   While revealing his teeth, Opie would squint and sometimes slither around like an otter. Well, thanks to the internet, we learned that the “ submissive grin ” is a thing. Dogs use this expression to communicate to people and other dogs that they are not a threat. OK. I’d never even heard of this before.   Hey, here’s a fun fact. Know what else dogs do to appear non-threatening? Pee. They pee.   ...

When people see our dog Opie (left), they notice his two different colored eyes first. Then they say, “What IS he?”—a mystery we have been trying to unravel since we “rescued” him from a kill shelter in South Carolina in January 2015. In the only photo we had seen, he appeared to be a German shepherd mix, which is exactly what we wanted. He looked young; the rescue organization thought three or four months old. Also exactly what we wanted! Perfect! We started the process to get him brought up to Vermont from South Carolina, which was surprisingly rigorous, with references and home visits. Finally a group of dogs was set to be transported up from SC. All of us adopters received a message telling us to show up at 4:30 the next afternoon at the Kmart that was about to go out of business. Standing around that empty parking lot waiting for a van to arrive from another state with our dogs felt super sketchy. We stood around making black market jokes.  I had been tasked with gett...