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Tigger was our first pet we got as a "grown-up couple" (both Ted and I had pets growing up). We got him from the SPCA at approximately 5 months
of age, in August of 1998. (So we guess that his birthday was around March 1998). His brindle color prompted me to use the name "brindle" when
posting about him on pet bulletin boards when I was a concerned new dog mommy trying to do everything right for my new baby. :) , and that is
what eventually led to my registration of brindleweb.com and the development of this website - so we have Tigger to thank for that!
Now that he is full-grown, he is about 60 - 65 lbs. His breed background is unknown, but our guess is shepherd x greyhound. I think the shepherd part
is fairly obvious from his coloring and the way he acts (he likes to stalk and pounce, and other shepherds I have seen play the same way that he does).
The greyhound part we guess because of the brindle coloring, and he also has a very slim build - a long slim muzzle and a skinny little legs. He can
run really really fast... but only when he wants to. He has to be really motivated.
As a puppy, Tigger was very sweet, friendly, and obedient. He loved to play with other dogs and adapted easily to having a cat in the house when we
adopted our first cat, Chewy. He excelled in his obedience class and was quiet and well-behaved. Sounds perfect, right?
But he did have mild separation anxiety which made him very destructive when we went out. We quickly learned to keep him confined somewhere
safe and keep everything out of his reach while we were away. We had lots of trouble finding petsitters who were willing to take him on, though. To
add to the problems, he was also really really hard to housebreak! In fact he was diagnosed with Diabetes Insipidus at about 6
months of age.
At about a year of age, a different side of his personality started to come out. The separation anxiety and housebreaking problems went away,
that was a good thing. However, he also started to become much more nervous, wary of strangers and especially children. He also developed a
dominant streak with other dogs. I worried for a long time about what we might have done to turn our
sweet puppy into this nervous "bully" dog, but I've come to the conclusion that it is just his personality and that it sometimes takes a while for a
puppy's personality to fully develop. In fact, his "puppy kindergarten" trainer told us that he would be a dominant dog early on although we weren't
see any signs yet. Anyway, that is another good argument for adopting an adult dog instead of a puppy - you can tell what they are going to turn out
like! Tigger is still very obedient and very sweet (and even very submissive) to Ted and I and the people he knows well. I think he would be the
perfect dog if nobody else existed in the world except for him and us! But he does have some issues with other people and animals.
Can a dog be both dominant and nervous/submissive? Tigger certainly seems to be. With us he is very "soft", a word that trainers use to describe a
dog who takes negative corrections very seriously. If we raise our voice or anything at all with Tigger he acts quite hurt, and is quite likely to roll
over and act totally submissive. He learns very quickly. Yet with other dogs he wants to be the boss, sometimes likes to hump, and definitely
enforces his idea of "politeness". He is a very polite dog who will not even push past us on a narrow path. He expects the same politeness from other
dogs however. He has been known to pin hyper pups to the ground and growl at them and stuff like that. We call him the "playground cop".
Most times he doesn't cause problems, though, we can even take him to dog parks and dog-friendly events, I just try to keep him away from
other dominant dogs or hyper dogs. Luckily, because he is so obedient, it is pretty easy to do that.
Most times he is a very mellow dog, content to lie on the couch, chew on a bone, and take it easy. When we first got our second dog,
Maki, they loved to play all the time. Now they hardly ever play, although Maki still tries to start it up, Tigger is just not
interested anymore. Occasionally he'll find a dog that he wants to play with at the dog park, but he doesn't even do that too much any more. He
still gets the "puppy crazies" quite often though, where he'll race around all crazy-like for a while. It's really cute!
Click here for Tigger's Picture Album.
Click here for Other Pet Pictures.
Click here to return to the pet page.
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