A good enough dog

If anyone asks me if Hetty, our young cockapoo, is a good dog, I tell them she’s mischievous. At a push, I would describe her as ‘quite’ good. I believe that at some point she might be properly good. But not just yet.

We can’t let her off the lead (apart from at one local playing field which is completely enclosed), because she runs away and doesn’t come back. When I go out the front door with her, she screams with excitement. She also jumps up and down with excitement and nips at me. Then she goes and bites the trunk of our tree.

When we walk, she is forever pulling into hedges and randomly stopping. It’s very rare that she just walks alongside me like a normal, well behaved dog.

She will rarely sit when told to sit and she definitely won’t lie down when told to lie down.

Sometimes she digs in the garden. Sometimes she breaks sticks off plants in the garden.

When she sees people she knows, she gets excited and jumps up at them. I always thought that dogs jumping up was very wrong.

Sometimes I think we need to do more to improve her behaviour. But then I remember that this is just a tiny fraction of who she is. This isn’t the important stuff. Who cares if she screams with excitement for a few seconds? And who cares if she jumps up at people she knows? Those people don’t care, they like it. (And she doesn’t jump up at strangers, so that’s good.)

 

Recently we took her to see my husband’s side of the family. Some of them have seen her once before. Some of them have never met her. And they all adored her. She behaved impeccably. She had her lovely, mischievous personality, but she was also very good. In the house, she didn’t touch or bite anything she shouldn’t. She didn’t go anywhere she shouldn’t. She ran around a bit, but without going crazy.

She didn’t bark at other dogs or people. She didn’t wee on the floor (she never wees on the floor, I’m pleased to say!).

This family used to have a dog and would like to get another one at some point in the future. They were chatting to me about where Hetty came from and asking if they’d had any more litters. I thought they were just making conversation, but they were genuinely interested in getting a dog just like Hetty. A dog actually related to Hetty.

In just a few hours, she’d won them over. She’d behaved impeccably. And I was so proud of her.

Hetty is a delightful and loving dog. She is a faithful friend. She is a little shadow. She brings joy to our lives. And not just our lives, but to lots of other lives too.

And I was reminded again that it doesn’t matter that she does a few little things wrong. That’s just who she is. She’s a good enough dog. In fact, she’s a lot better than a good enough dog.