Who is really in charge? Me or our dog?

The parenting lessons I learnt from the worst behaved dog I know.

Pixel living her best life

I have joined Welsh Terriers UK Facebook group. This is an unexpected turn of events. Even though I come from a long line of dog loons (we never had less than four dogs in the house I grew up in) I swore I would never be ‘that’ person. You know what I mean; the person who calls their canine ‘my fur baby’ before letting it lick their face minutes after licking something unmentionable in the garden.

Not me, I always said, I know dogs are not humans, I know ours can’t understand a word I am saying, I know she isn’t ‘secretly mad at me” as I often suspect. I don’t buy her clothes to wear or put her initials on her food bowl because she can’t read. She’s a dog. And yet….

Pixel, is a five year old Welsh Terrier. We’ve had her since she was a 12 week old puppy. She won’t come when she is called, the neighbours call her ‘that bloody barkatron’, she makes any piece of soft furnishing I treasure her bed (ruining it), she is not a morning person (or afternoon person actually), she is a little bit ‘bitey’ as my 10 year old says and generally quite reluctant to be stroked or cuddled. She’s as aloof as a cat.

Pixel is not a compromiser and she doesn’t like it when people, or new objects, come into the house and she is quite forthright in her opinion if you try and move her off a bed, sofa and on a few occasions our kitchen table.  It’s like living with one of the Gremlins, my teen son once pointed out and I suspect she thinks her name is “No Pixel”.  But we are overwhelmingly, consistently and adoringly in love with her. She’s such a character and nothing she can do – and it feels like she tests this theory a lot – can put us off her.

Which is why I have joined Welsh Terriers UK on Facebook, I am so smitten with Pixel that I log in every day just to tell those who care – and frankly only other Welshie fans would want to know this stuff – stories about our Pixel. It’s madness. I have become one of those people.

This new behaviour could possibly be linked to Empty Nest Syndrome, the eldest of my four has left home and No 2 is off in September but I still have a 15yo and 10yo in the house so perhaps it doesn’t wholly explain it. I think I am head over heels in love with our dog because she is the glue that holds family life together. I treasure her because of this, she has, as the young people say ‘understood the assignment’.

When our eldest became teenagers I noticed how helpful having a dog was. We had an  enormous Airedale before we got Pixel and the 18 months between dogs was odd, a piece was missing from our family jigsaw after Duke died.

Dogs are an invaluable asset when you have adolescents, a fluffy friendly face after a big family row soothes a teenage mind, a warm fur ball at your feet (or in our case on your lap) when you are revising makes the whole process much more bearable.

When tension mounts I often tell the kids we ‘must’ take the dog out. They wouldn’t come if it weren’t for her and off we trot casually chatting (side by side is the only way to talk to teens about meaningful or important subjects). Dogs encourage teens to spend time in other parts of the house rather than just their bedrooms, and if it’s a lucky day they will sometimes take the dog for a walk solo.

And watching our nosey dog quietly pottering around checking in on people (aka sniffing out nibbles) was a good life lesson on the parenting adolescent’s front. Sometimes you just have to be more Welsh terrier and embrace the art of being there: pop your head round the door and say hi, or sit quietly on the sofa doing and saying nothing, not fixing anything or asking for any information, simply being around in case you are needed.

Our dog has also been good in times of teenage heart break (when she will happily accept cuddles). On rainy days when tension mounts and bickering seems to escalate she will often create a useful distraction from the mood (usually by racing round the room chasing her own tail for the LoLs, as our 10 year points out).

She seems to sense the family energy in the room with great perception and she is without fail always pleased to see any one of us, which is very cheering, especially for those of us who are often ‘bad cop’ when it comes to discipline (me).

When the children were young it was hard having a dog, it seemed to add the extra load of another child, they are terribly time consuming and need a lot of looking after but this dog we have has created a unique sense of belonging between us, she is part of the family identity. She often dominates our conversations with her antics and provides a common bond between us. She is the noisiest, messiest and most badly behaved member of the family but each of us laps up her non-judgemental attention. We’re lucky to have her and if you were to ask who is the real matriarch of the family it wouldn’t be me. It would be the smallest, furriest, most entertaining one of us: Pixel The Welsh Terrier.

Mum What’s Wrong With You: 101 Things Only The Mothers of teenage Girls Know by Lorraine Candy. Available here

(If you are thinking of getting a dog please do you research on the right breed for you, I am not sure a Welshie is best to be honest in larger families, talk to the Dogs Trust if you are thinking of adopting or The RSPCA or Blue Cross charities.)