191. Stacy and Meredith

Nora has two dogs, Stacy and Meredith, and one helped the other overcome severe anxiety.

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In my household, we have 3 kids – the fourth is in college. We have two hamsters because Matthew said that’s my limit. We have one gecko, which my ten year old child named Geico because that’s the power of branding…and we have two dogs.

Stacy is our oldest dog, and the one we’ve had the longest. We got her three months after I had my youngest child, when I had post partum depression and was losing what was left of my mind and had just started a podcast and had a new book due and thought to myself…what I need is a dog.

Stacy is a shih tzu and when people ask, is she your emotional support dog I want to say absolutely not! No! I am HER emotional support person. 

Stacy used to live in a puppy mill and when we got her, she was a bag of bones that was so scared of people she lived under a chair in our living room. Even when she got comfortable enough to come out, she lived right next to me, always. She followed me from room to room, and would scoot back under her chair if something else showed up. She once bit my husband and he had to go to the hospital and honestly, I took her side and still take her side and this is pretty much the only argument we’ve ever had in our marriage but Stacy is a survivor and she was just doing what she had to do to survive a man who wanted to feed her dinner and approached her the wrong way!

Even when Stacy got used to Matthew and the kids, she still didn’t seem like a dog. She seemed like an animal that looked like a dog, but hadn’t been programmed correctly. She wouldn’t chase a toy. She would barely chew on a toy. We loved her, and she loved me…and tolerated everyone else.

And then Meredith showed up. 

It was June 2020, and we were driving around our new city trying to find Sophie a Boba for her 14th birthday. We were lost (my fault) and I saw a man in front of an apartment building with what looked like a flock of small dogs. We pulled over to just watch, and then we got out to test the waters of approaching anyone in a pandemic, and the puppies ran over to us. The mom was a chiweenie, the dad was a pomeranian mini-pin, and each puppy looked so different they couldn’t possibly be related. The owner was overwhelmed and friendly and when I asked him, hey, could we like, buy a puppy? He said OH MY GOD YES PLEASE and said $100 and I said no way buddy, I’ll give you $200. That’s how I negotiate.

Matthew was…not that excited? We didn’t NEED A dog. We HAD a dog. And we had moved into a much smaller house, and things were stressful but! 

A few weeks later, Meredith came home to us…

And Stacy…could not have cared less.

Meredith ran to her, probably for comfort – she’d just been ripped away from her family – and Stacy froze. For weeks, Meredith would jump around her, nip at her, bark and her, try to play with her…and Stacy would just stare forward as though nothing was happening. It was eerie and kind of mean?? 

And then…Stacy activated. Meredith was chasing a ball…and Stacy got up, pushed Meredith aside…and got the ball? Every day, she did a little bit more…she chased Meredith around. They WRESTLED. They played tug of war. Meredith, this little puppy, was teaching Stacy how to be a dog… something I admittedly do not know how to do. 

It’s been three years now, and they still sleep together and cuddle each other and chase each other around. Stacy is, strangely, kind of an alpha, which we didn’t see coming.

 We didn’t need another dog, but Stacy did. 

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