Sometimes One Plus One Equals Chaos

Have you ever had a friend or relative who over-reacted to everything? Each bump in the road was the end of the world, each bout with the common cold was the plaque, every small accomplishment was worthy of national press coverage, and every basic need was an emergency that had to be taken care of immediately?

My dog Barnaby is the drama queen in our family (or technically drama king).

We had a beautiful yellow lab for ten years named Honey Bear. We brought him home when our third daughter wasn't quite two and our fourth daughter hadn't even been born yet. He was an adorable puppy whose feet were too big for his body and whose tongue was always lolling out of his mouth. It was our girls first experience with training a dog, which was evidenced by my oldest daughter trying to convince the puppy not to chew a pillow by reasoning with him like this, "You shouldn't chew that, puppy, because it's my mommy's furniture and she'll get mad," instead of just saying, "No, no."

Honey Bear was loving, and protective, and put up with so much tugging and hugging and dress-up from our girls that he should have won doggie awards. He had his share of quirkiness (he wouldn't have fit in our family if he didn't) like loving water so much that he once dented the metal fence around our pool trying to force his way in, and looking forward to our annual Easter egg hunt so he could find a few on his own and carefully peel the shell with his teeth to get to the yummy egg inside. When he developed heart problems at age ten and passed away in my arms, a part of my soul died with him.

The house was too quiet without Honey Bear's nails click-clacking on the hardwood floors, so we decided to get a new puppy. It would have been too painful to raise a Honey Bear II, so we agreed to go in a totally different direction and get a little white Bichon Frise. We chose a female and named her Isabella, but she quickly became Bella to all of us (this was in 2001, so we weren't honoring vampires). Bella is a laid-back dog who hardly ever barks and when she does, it's a deep-throated ba-roo, like a beagle. Her eyes are as black as coal and the craziest thing she has ever done is chew on rocks when we were doing some digging in the backyard. Seriously, just the thought of scraping my teeth on the hard surface of a rock makes me cringe, but Bella loved digging them up and chewing on them. She doesn't know that Bichons have a long history as pampered show dogs and is most happy when she is half covered in dirt.

We were happily living with our quiet, sweet little dog and a handful of stray cats we'd taken in. Common sense would tell you to enjoy the situation and don't rock the boat, but my family will always rock the boat no matter how many times it tips over on us. We decided to get another Bichon to keep Bella company. After all, who wouldn't love two adorable, calm little dogs to cuddle? We got a male and named him Barnaby.

My vet, who also owns the kennel where the dogs stay while we are on vacation, calls Barnaby "sensitive" and says it takes a special owner to raise a dog like Barn. He is being very generous and very politically correct.

The real story is that Barn is a hot mess. He is nothing like easy-going Bella. You would think they are two different breeds of dog. He doesn't even have her soft ba-roo; he has a high pitched yap of a bark and he uses it when he's happy, sad, scared, confused, lonely, hungry, or awake. We have had him for eight years now and not a day goes by that I don't laugh at his antics.

Barnaby is afraid of everything. He is afraid of his dry food bowl and will only eat the food if it's tipped out onto the floor. He is afraid of his canned food and will only eat it if you hold the plate with your feet so it can't move and startle him. Anything that blows onto or is left sitting in our yard is cause for non-stop barking and avoidance of the area until it is moved or we touch it to show him it isn't dangerous. This includes such known dog-killers as a paper bag, an open umbrella, a cooler, or a bag of fertilizer. He is absolutely terrified by the magazine page with the boy with the "got milk" mustache and the shopping bags from trendy stores that have half-dressed men and women on them, like Aeropostale or Abercrombie and Fitch. Freaks him out every time. We have to hide them.

Everything is an emergency with Barn. Bella nudges her empty water bowl and then waits. Nudges and then waits. Barn nudges, then overturns, then bangs it into the wall, all without a pause, as though he has just spent two days crossing the desert without a drop to drink. Even when you say, "Just a minute, Barn," so he knows you are coming, the onslaught continues. When he has to go out, he whines and dances so you know he needs to go this very second, and the thirty seconds it took you to cross the room were twenty-nine too many for him.

He is afraid to miss out on anything. His attention is torn in so many directions and he has trouble choosing which one is the most interesting. He wants to be outside with my husband, but what if I'm doing something interesting inside and he's missing it? He wants to be by my side, but he also wants to be with Bella and we are in different rooms, so he needs to travel back and forth, back and forth. He has the worst case of ADD I've ever seen in a dog.

He loves to go for rides in the car, but going for a ride makes him so excited that he throws up every time. He runs to the window and whines for it to be lowered, but once it is, he runs to the other window, wanting that one down as well, in case there is something that smells more interesting out that side. Between the whining, vomiting, and running from window to window, Bella only wants one thing--to climb in the front by me where she can sleep in peace.

Bella has had ear infections, hot spots, and various ailments, but she rarely ever lets us know about them. We stumble upon them at regular vet visits or through a slight wince while she is being pet. Barn, on the other hand, is apoplectic about every flea bite. This past weekend, Barn got a hot spot on his tail (which is kind of like a person getting poison ivy). We immediately cleaned it with lukewarm water and put ointment on to ease the pain and itchiness. We then took him to the vet for an injection and have used the pills and spray the vet gave us faithfully since. I feel terrible for him, partly because I hate to see him in discomfort, but also because I know how much this is rattling him. He is shaking like a leaf, keeps trying to bite his tail, fur is falling out, he is unconsolable when I leave his side long enough to use the bathroom even though someone else sits with him, and he wants me to carry him everywhere. The drama of the situation is so much more intense than if Bella had the exact same ailment.

There is nothing funny about a dog in pain or discomfort and I wince every time I have to treat his boo-boo, touching him as gently as I would a newborn baby. He is my baby and I feel his pain deeply. I've gone with only brief patches of sleep the past three nights to take care of him. But it is slightly comical to compare his "I'm at death's door" attitude about common ailments next to Bella's stoic life-goes-on response. It's especially funny to note the similarities to a human male's reaction to illness and injuries versus human females. I've always been the "Bella" in our family, pushing through pain and illness to take care of everyone while my husband needs the world to stop if he has the sniffles, just like Barn.

In spite of all his neurotic behaviors, Barnaby is also one of the funniest dogs you'll ever see. He is the life of any room he is in. He is not only adorable to look at, but has tons of personality. When he walks, he takes two or three normal steps and then hitches one leg up into a cute little skip for a step, then back to normal. He is a bundle of energy and loves to chase a bouncy ball around the room, inevitably losing it under furniture and then lying with his nose tucked under the edge of the couch or table until someone rescues it for him. When he is picked up by someone he doesn't know, he keeps his four legs stiff and straight as though he was a stuffed animal or a possum playing dead.  He has spent so much time around cats that he often thinks he is one, including sitting on the back of the couch pawing at my husband's head until he gets the attention he craves.

He is afraid to climb a set of stairs, so he climbs at an angle from left to right until he reaches the halfway point, which puts him all the way to the right side of that step, then walks to the left side, turns in a full circle so he is facing up, and completes the climb. He hates the water, but hates it even worse when we are in the pool and too far away from him, so we put him on a raft to keep him dry, yet in the midst of the fun. His behavior and high energy make him seem like a puppy still, but so does his size--he eats the same amount as Bella, but burns it off too quickly to fatten up, usually while running in circles around her as she patiently walks through the yard like the princess she is. Bella mothers Barn and puts up with his hijinks with as much patience as Honey Bear put up with my young daughters' hijinks, but every so often, she looks at me with those baleful eyes as though asking, "What did I ever do to deserve this?"

There are days when Barnaby's barking drives me crazy and days when I'm tempted to lace his food with Benedryl just to calm him down, but for the most part, he is a good fit for our crazy family. It's nice to have a dog to point to and say, "Look what he's doing now!" to distract your company while you discreetly blow broccoli from your nose into a tissue or move your mother-in-law's toe so you can reach the ice cream in the freezer you are about to serve them for dessert.