Nadi was never socialized with other dogs when she was younger. This wasn't me be a terrible pet owner, it is just kind of the way it works with small dogs in Thailand. Since there are so many stray and often near-feral dogs in Thailand, it is exceptionally unsafe to allow your dog to be around other dogs. Most pet owners in Thailand have small dogs that never are exposed to other dogs unless they live in the same household. Therefore, since I am a one dog kind of guy at heart, Nadi has always had the house to herself and has always been the queen of the castle. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that she is less-than-thrilled when I tell a friend that I will babysit their dog or dogs when they have to go out of tow or in this instance, out of the country.
There Nadi is on the sofa on "her" spot. Just like Sheldon in Big Bang she will not share that spot or area with anyone else including me. If I am on the sofa trying to watch TV she will complain by growling or lightly barking at me if I take up that space.
Thankfully, the two dogs that are staying with us have kind of understood that this is her area and for the most part they respect that. If they get too close Nadi will bark at them and that is the end of it. She isn't really capable of hurting anything so I don't worry about that happening. She's all bark, no bite.
Here are her roommates.
This is Alee and she is a long-haired Chihuahua. She is very needy as far as attention is concerned and has respiratory issues and therefore snores very loud despite her tiny size. She is a sweetheart and is also incapable of harming really anything.
This little love-muffin is named Charlie and she is very playful but also scared of almost everything. She is likely the most agile of the 3 but is incapable of jumping up onto things and I think maybe she took a bad spill or two in her youth because now she won't even try to gain access to anything elevated. "Fine by me!" says Nadi from her perch on the sofa as she snoozes the day away.
One issue that I have with these two visitors is that they have lived their entire lives in a "small dog in Asia" way which means that they only use the bathroom on pee pads indoors. Both of them are horrendous when it comes to walks so after a try or two, I just decided to leave them in the house since they won't use the bathroom outside anyway for the most part. The pee pads are a great development in doggo science but I do not have a large apartment and need to change the pee pads regularly or my house smells like pee and poo poo and well, I don't want that.
Alee rarely sits still if you are near her and gets too nervous for even my brand new 200 megapixel camera to get a good still image of her. She feels obligated to pee 20x a day in very small batches and then unfortunately will lie down in it after it halfway dries. She is a cute little thing but she is disgusting and will be getting a bath in the next hour or so. Don't tell her!
Another frustrating element of these two visitors is that they are very fussy eaters. Nadi will immediately eat the kibbles that I give her as soon as they hit the bowl. These two require some coaxing to get them to eat at all.
This photo is a rare moment where I was able to get all of them in the same shot without anyone barking at one another and what brought them together as a team is quite amusing.
My balcony is right over the street and there are a few street dogs out there that kind of live somewhere but also just wander the streets for the most part. These dogs will get into tiny fights with one another and start barking like mad. When that happens my 3 sentinels will spring into action to get a look at the action taking place on the street below. For a moment at least they are brought together by their mutual curiosity and once that is finished Nadi goes back to wanting the other 2 to get the hell away from her.
I was feeling bad about how much time they were all spending indoors so I took them all to the local pub while the cleaners were in on Monday so they could at least get out of the house. They were superstars there and everyone was taking their turn petting them and giving them cuddles.
I'm quite certain that Nadi would have been offered cuddles as well but Nadi is a strange small dog that doesn't like to be hugged or even held unless she is scared. Nadi was more than happy to let the other two have all the attention while she "splooted" next to the front door
There is something else that is preventing Nadi from being pals with these other dogs too. Nadi is in her "golden years" in that she recently turned 11 years old. Charlie is 6 and Alee is 5, so they have a great deal more enthusiasm for playing and running around than Nadi does. Nadi is more of a no nonsense old lady and will actually get upset with them if they start making too much noise from their playing. As far as Nadi is concerned this is HER house and everyone else that is there, probably including me, are just getting in her way.
By simply not moving for a while I was able to convince them to all go and make sleepy-times in their own respective areas and they all seem pretty content.
I guess you could say that I don't really mind looking after other people's dogs but it does also make me very happy that I only have 1 dog. Especially considering the fact that my 55 square meter apartment isn't really big enough, I think one doggo is more than enough.
In all likelihood Charlie and Alee will only be with us for 2 more nights and then things will go back to normal. I will probably miss the two little ones a little bit once they are gone but I will be more than happy to have to deal with 1/3 the amount of pee and poo that I currently find myself in charge of.