Fraidy Dog

It's official.

I have the most afraid dog in Dothan...no make that Alabama. My dog Benny is scared of everything. Everything!

We rescued Benny from the Humane Society when we first moved to Dothan a couple of years ago. Well, I rescued Benny and brought him home, hoping Brannon wouldn't turn the poor pup down. I knew he wouldn't. Brannon is a sucker for distressed things, especially cute dogs. And Benny was a mess. We didn't even know he was a full-bred poodle until we took him to the beauty shop and had his matted, overgrown hair all cut off. Poor puppy. He was so hideous he was cute. His stinky hair hung over his eyes and covered his entire face. He had to be so hot since it was mid-summer when we adopted him.

We weren't sure what type of dog Benny was going to turn out to be. Was he going to chew up our house? Pee everywhere? Bark all night? Try to climb in our bed in the middle-of-the-night? Nope. Benny did none of these things. In fact, he did nothing. He didn't bark. He didn't play. He didn't chew on bones or beg for treats. He would just sit there, sometimes staring at the wall, and he would follow at my heel everywhere I went. He always looked so sad and depressed. One night before going to bed, Brannon was trying to swat a fly that was buzzing around our house all day. The fly landed on the window right above Benny's bed, and when Brannon grabbed the fly swatter to kill the fly, Benny coward and ran under the bed. There were other such scenarios that led us to the conclusion that Benny was not only severely neglected, he was abused. He is still deathly afraid of anything that resembles rolled up newspapers, bats, etc.

You wouldn't know Benny was this way if you know him now. He begs for treats, loves bones, prances around in excitement, loves to cuddle, loves to play, and LOVES to chase squirrels. Squirrels are Benny's life. And he LOVES to run. I swear Brannon and I would be rich if we allowed him to race - he's that fast.

Anyway, although Benny is a different - and much happier - dog today, he is still afraid of EVERYTHING. We have learned that Benny is afraid of:

• Baseball caps and people who wear them
• paper
• books - He wouldn't sit in the passenger seat of my car because I had books on the floorboard.
• Mary Ellen's boogie picker (you know, that suction thingy you use to get boogies out...when you're a mom, you can publicly say "boogies".)
• Marshmallows - Don't ask
• Baby toys - all of them
• Thunder
• Rain
• Sprinklers
• Any pool of water
• Mail
• Anything out of place, like if there is something sitting on our back steps, he will not go outside until we move it.
• Cade - Brannon's friend who is over quite often, and yet Benny thinks he is the devil.

This is just a sample of what Benny is afraid of. The list could be longer and it seems to grow everyday. We can't help but laugh at his behavior, especially when Cade comes over. Benny will run and hide underneath our bed, sometimes for hours, until the coast is clear of Cade. I think Cade was Benny's former owner, and apparently he chased him with fly swatters and marshmallows.

Poor pup.

We love him anyway, even when we can't pull him out from underneath our bed.