Daisy!!

Daisy checks out the marina scene before she spies the camera.












Poor sweet photogenic Daisy. I found her online at Petfinder.com a year ago January. It said she was "calm, gentle, good with other dogs".........


John tries to set up a group photo....















(HAHAHAHAHA) and not recommended for kids or cats, since they didn't know about that.
The first thing she did when we met her, at a foster home in Detroit, was say to Frankie, "I adore you", and to John, "Let's go home now."
So, we did. She didn't peep at all on the four hour drive, or indeed, even move. As it turns out, she was terrified. When we got home though, she walked in the house, saw Sophie the cat, went up and touched noses and that was that re: cats.
With kids, well, a two year old once sat on her in the studio and she wagged her tail- she LOVES all people-and has mastered Frankie's heavy head lean into the human leg trick, guaranteed to win over everyone.
But DOGS? WTF?
After she bit the ear (and drew mucho blood) of a neighbour's (admittedly nasty, badly behaved aggressive, uncontrolled- bites small kids- schnauzer) TWICE, and began growling, and then going ballistic at random passing dogs-on-leash on walks, we began to, um, reassess the "good with other dogs" part. The way it stands now:
She must be leashed at ALL times- she may like, or hate, a dog and will attack with no warning, or not, as she sees fit- she might, instead wag her tail and want to play- it is all hit and miss, to the human eye. So after we tried a dog psychologist- mainly to placate the owners of Bootsie the schnauzer, who has since died of old age, by the way- we leash her when she is outside 100% of the time and we have all adjusted. But her own pack? She adores the cats, worships Frankie and mothers Chiwee- taking anything he does, from tail biting, to being climbed on, to sharing a dish, in stride. She is very loyal to her own pack.


She tries to hide behind the legs of some random strangers on the pier










But, she has a weird phobia, about cameras...... They TERRIFY her- she shakes like a leaf and runs away- it is all a mystery-it isn't the flash per se: even seeing the camera in my hand triggers it. As a result, we have very few pics of her. So the other night I decided, after several months' hiatus, to try again. It was marginally better, as in, she only ran to the end of the leash and asked the people sitting next to us on the dock, to adopt her, LOL. At least I got a few and then I couldn't do it to her any more.
Camera put away, Daisy, returns to her own pack,
exhausted by the trauma of it all, where Chiwee
gives her a reassuring kiss.