Time for a little whining again…

If you read this blog, it won’t take you long to realize that I love animals. Dogs (some dogs, I should say) are among my favorite animals. My very favorite breed is the lhasa apso. First I’d like to explain that here, in Sweden, it’s quite a rare breed, and is definitely not among the top twenty breeds. As I understand it, it’s quite the opposite in the US.

What I love the most about this breed is their personality and attitude. Don’t get me wrong, I also love the way they look, but that’s really a minor reason.

When I look at the breed sites or read books and printed articles about the breed, I find things like ‘if you don’t like the grooming, choose another breed’. Huh? I love this dog’s personality, like none other (ok, not quite true, I love a couple of other breeds too and basically like all kinds of dogs, like I like most types of animals, period). Should I just decide not to get it, because I’m not a huge fan of all that hairdressing? No way.

Because I love the lhasa apso’s personality, I’m willing to learn and put up with the extensive grooming required. Naturally I want my dog to be healthy and happy. I’ll never learn to love that aspect of sharing my life and home with an awesome, cool Tibetan dog, but I can live with it.

Actually, it’s the same about the amount of excercise some of the bigger or more active breeds need. I love walking, and walking fast, up to a point. Mainly, I love walking in the streets, in parks or in the agrarian landscape surrounding small towns. In other words, I don’t love hiking for days on end in the wilderness or climbing mountains, riding a bike etc.

I’ve also taken the consequences of that, by not choosing a big or very active breed (for instance, I also love, to name a few of my other favorites, the Eurasian dog, the dachshund, the golden retriever, poodles and naturally mixes between similar types of dogs, not to mention some gorgeous ‘working’ dogs that I could only dream about). These dogs deserve to live far more active lives than I can give them, so I don’t adopt them. Sigh. You can’t have everything. I suppose if I had a family member who lived for week long hikes in the woods or mountains or running for hours, we could share a dog. I’m sure no excercise-craving dog would spurn a shorter slightly less energetic walk in addition to their daily runs.

Smaller, less active dogs, like the lhasa apso enjoy about the same type of walking I do – well, up to a point. Mom’s Tibetan spaniel seems to think I’m a cruel bully and a jock, for expecting him to actually move about. His idea of a nice walk is standing still, sniffing lamp poles or ambling along at a leisurely pace, peeing here and there to send messages to other male dogs. But in general, I think my hour or so of walking around the town satisfies my dog and would satisfy other similar small dogs (most tibetan spaniels, the bichon breeds etc).