The family down the block with the new pomeranian has a kid Eva's age

[conuly]

A year younger. I last saw him about two months ago, and I swear, he's grown an inch a week since then. Just shot up.

Moonpie is not fond of white men, as a group. She's learned to like individuals in that group, but she distrusts them on the whole. We don't know why she's like that. It could be A Thing, or it could be a chihuahua thing. They're apparently prone to weird biases like that.

She's more or less okay with children, though - even if she clearly doesn't like their enthusiasm she'll give them the benefit of the doubt before she moves away and she doesn't bark at them. (I do encourage all children asking to pet the dogs to go for Finn instead, since he seems to unconditionally love all human attention, no matter how clumsy.)

Last time she saw J, she let him pet her. This time she backed as far away as she could on the leash and barked.

It is amazing the change one single growth spurt makes.

Comments

[altamira16]

Are chihuahuas like that? My mom briefly had a chihuahua because she heard that they could detect asthma attacks in children, but the chihuahua hated her Black friends, so the chihuahua had to go find another home.

[conuly]

Apparently, yes. Most of the people Moonpie sees in her home on a regular basis are a. AFAB b. black or c. both. I'm told it's not unheard of for a chihuahua to therefore decide that Other Humans Are Riskier.

[swingandswirl]

I mean, in fairness, I were as small as a chihuahua is, I would be dubious about the Tols, too. And the white dude thing is just good sense, given the history of white dudes. /jk

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Tiny dogs mostly were bred to retain as much fight or volume as possible.

Chihuahuas are an extreme, and frequently needing additional clothing.

[conuly]

Moonpie is actually on the large side of a chihuahua. This *may* be because she's deer head and they tend to be a big bigger, or she may be a mix with something. I'm inclined to think it's the former - other than her size (big bones, not fat!) she doesn't look any different from any chihuahua I've ever seen.

[agoodwinsmith]

Could be a change in pheromones, or some other olfactory age signal.

[conuly]

Whatever it is, he clearly did not twig to her as "that boy whom I'm not scared of" this time.

[chanter1944]

I did not know that sort of reaction to specific groups was a chihuahua thing. I've heard of shepherds not liking uniforms, but the source of that info was pretty dang unreliable. I'm so used to Labradors who might have specific groups they especially love - the love-everybody lab in the icon particularly liked CIS women, because most of the people who raised him, and both his trainers were, and so am I - but disliking people isn't on the radar. Generally, if a lab dislikes you, there's something reeeeally off going on. Or something happened to the poor fuzzy.

[conuly]

This is what I've been told. Having only really known one chihuahua in my life, I can't provide any other evidence, but it certainly is true that white men are the third most disliked people in her life. (The first being "people sitting or standing on a porch where she has not previously observed that specific person sitting or standing" and "anybody on wheels or pushing a granny cart").

[hudebnik]

Well, you have to admit, those are pretty alarming behaviors :-)

[conuly]

Indeed.

[conuly]

She also doesn't like mail carriers, but I think that's mostly because they go on people's porches.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

And some of them have those wheelie carts. ;)

[conuly]

Oh yes. I'm actually very cautious around anybody with any wheeled anything nowadays - the one and only time we had an unprovoked snap* from her was when she suddenly dashed at somebody pushing a granny cart. They laughed it off, because for some reason when it's a small dog people do, but I didn't find it so funny. So now I keep her extremely close, turn around, or even pick her up when we're near people with wheeled anythings, even if she's outwardly acting calm.

It's been a few years and it hasn't happened since, but I'm not willing to risk it.

* All other times involve vets trimming her nails, strange dogs suddenly barking in her face, waking up from surgery, and once, notably, being surprised by a strange man coming out of the bathroom when nobody had informed her that we had a guest over. That's our bad - as I said after I heard about it, I would've bit him too! She's actually improved markedly in those first two situations. The others haven't come up again - we confine her or introduce her to guests and contractors, and of course she isn't going to be spayed twice.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

I could see a population of German Shepherds having issues with In Uniform, from bad handlers.

I've known various shopkeep retrievers. They're genteel eager to go to the bell, don't generally alarm customers and their tail is mostly flair. Very useful traits for luthiers and other busy in the back Owner is main clerk.