That’s what my husband calls me anyway. He is of the view that when they are curled up with him in the living room, they are doing so with an ear and an eye on the doorway, just waiting for me to appear. It’s very unlikely that I can walk into the room unnoticed – it’s sometimes now a half get up rather than a full stand and run to me, but my presence is always acknowledged. If I’m just popping in the living room on my way elsewhere, it’s inevitable that at least one and more often than not, two hounds will be at my heels, trotting alongside and looking up at me to see what adventures I am up to. Putting the kettle on is generally a tragic disappointment to the woofers (you opened the fridge and didn’t provide chicken?!).
There is an awful lot on the interwebs (I know, I shouldn’t Google quite so much…) about greyhounds being Velcro dogs and I thought I understood what that meant, having had dogs with some degree of separation anxiety before. I learnt with Sam and Bea that I had no clue really.
It’s not that these woofers have separation anxiety – they actually go to bed together at night quietly with no fuss, if we leave them for an hour or two the Nest camera and microphone shows that they don’t wander or cry, they pick a sofa and sleep until we come back. They aren’t destructive, don’t bark or cry for us or stress pace and pant – something which was a huge relief. I think that’s probably in large part due to them having each other – they were kennelled together at the rescue and used to being kennelled with another dog so this is not such a strange thing. The strange bit I think for them is having a whole house (if you would just reconsider stairs Queen Bea!) and people always around in the house during the waking hours.
I just hadn’t expected their level of devotion to people in the house. That if you are there, they want to be with you. Is this a symptom I wonder of their previous life – a lack of humans to interact with means that they want to interact at all available opportunities? They are quietly devoted to just being in the same room as us. How hard and fast they have chosen to be devoted to us beyond melts my heart – they have had no reason to trust people and attach themselves to them but they have decided to do so. And they do it so whole heartedly – performing their role as silent (ish) shadow and devoted companion like no other dog I have ever had.
I wonder sometimes what drives that – within a matter of hours of moving in, Bea followed us from room to room. She hadn’t spent very long with us beforehand on visits, had no real reason to attach herself to us, so I wonder what was going through her mind at that time. Was there an association of people to things like food? I can’t imagine there was a playtime and cuddle time in kennels (rescue being the exception) so what drove her to decide that new people were people she could cuddle and play with, that she wanted to spend her time with? Or was a person, any person at all, just the only point of familiarity in this new world you found yourself thrown into? Maybe it was just familiarity of some form rather than a trust in people to be a good thing- I would very much hesitate to use the word trust there, not from the start anyway and certainly not with Sam.
Sam did not start as a Velcro dog. You were always in sight of Sam but never in reach – his dashes past you and flinches at things like spatulas being picked up, suggested that he did not want to be in reach of you. He would quietly observe, slowly slowly starting to quietly approach me for a fuss or a brush in his own time and his own way. Over the last 5-6 months he has slowly become more certain of these people and this place and takes great delight in following me about the house, jumping on my bed in the morning to rest his head on my feet and curling up on the bed behind me during the working day. Sam is not a fan of sofa cuddles (that times that has happened can probably be counted on one hand) and generally has to initiate contact beyond a gentle fuss and tickle – happily he is starting to feel he can initiate this more and more (and so the Sam-Boop was born). In some ways I think he will end up as more of a Velcro dog than Bea, with his newfound quiet joy in discovering the good in being with people.
When they were adopted, their rescue profiles and their experiences in the first few months of this house were spot on – Bea needs people, Sam needs Bea. I’ve thought on that a lot, trying to work out what they each needed from the other parties and what we could do to help that. It’s something that is slowly becoming less desperate (I’m not sure if that’s the right word but I hope you understand what I mean) as time goes on. Is their “need” for something driven by a lack of confidence in anything else, themselves included?
It’s something that I wonder will continue to ease as time goes on and they feel more settled here, more like they are safely at home. There are already signs that they are feeling a bit more secure – Bea doesn’t always feel the need to be in your lap anymore – she is still frequently the ultimate Cuddlemonster but she can now be quite content either next to you or on the other sofa and enjoying a stretch out. Sometimes after lunch she will chose a different room to people and Sam, to have a bit of quiet time just her for maybe an hour or so. I imagine she had never had that as an option before – time to be just her quietly and spread out across the beds and arrange the toys just to her liking.
Sam will decide he is fed up of downstairs being cleaned and take himself upstairs for a sleep on his Sam-Bed. He will still look for Bea but isn’t as devoted to keeping her in sight as he once was, feeling secure enough himself to wander and nap either on his own or with a person rather than his little big sister. He is starting to really enjoy finding people in the house and spending time with them – sometimes just in the room but within range, sometimes booping at their arm quietly to let them know fawn ears are available for a fuss.
I hope they do feel safe and secure, I hope that them wandering from room to room with us is a sign that they are happy to be with us, rather than scared of not being with us. Their comfort, safety and happiness, however that looks, is all that matters. A cuddle because they want to is just an unexpectedly wonderful bonus.