My little Mowgli

As you can see in my profile, my last name is Whalen -- a fine old Irish family name that is a modern variant of O'Faolain, which once upon a time meant, "of the wolf clan."

I only found this out a couple years ago, but it made perfect sense to me. Finally, I had an explanation for all those werewolf dreams I had as a young teenager -- dreams in which I was the wolf, running through the woods and hunting down my victims. (Yeah, yeah, yeah, if Freud were still alive he would no doubt chalk it up to unrealized sexual longing or some such thing. Stupid Freud.) It also explains why my family likes dogs so much, and why my brother and I both could be described as loners who nonetheless enjoy traveling in packs.

In keeping with my canine heritage, a couple years ago I convinced Rob that we had to adopt our downstairs neighbour's dog, Nell. The neighbour was moving to a new place and couldn't bring Nell with him. It didn't take that much convincing; Nell was practically our dog anyways.

Our neighbour loved animals and had a kind heart but wasn't home a lot of the time. Since he also had three cats (one of which was blind, another missing a leg, and the third afflicted with a serious drooling problem), he usually left Nell out on the back porch when he was gone from the house. We took pity on her one day when she was outside shivering and let her inside to hang out with us.

And so it began. Once that envelope was opened, Nell, starved for companionship, had no intention of letting it close again. She started spending as much time as she could upstairs with us, insinuating herself into our home and hearts.

Part Labrador, part Staffordshire terrier (i.e., one of the four distinct breeds commonly called "pit bulls"), Nell was a pound dog who wasn't at all socialized when our neighbour rescued her from certain doom. He soon discovered that she was extremely dog aggressive and frightened of strangers. Our guess is that she was an abused "puppy farm" dog, and was trained to fight any dog she saw from an early age, before she ended up at the SPCA.

Of course, a large, muscle-bound dog that's frightened of people tends to display that fear in the form of growling and teeth-baring, so Nell often made people just as frightened of her as she was of them. (She freaked the holy bejeezus out of my mother AND my mother-in-law, but those are stories for another time.)

Over time, however, as she spent more and more time upstairs with us, she gradually learned to trust people and see them as sources of food and affection. It was a fascinating process to observe; whenever we had friends over, she'd stand at the entrance to the living room and watch us, clearly wanting to come in and join us, but reluctant to move away from her escape route. If someone startled her by getting up too suddenly from a couch or chair, she'd quickly bolt downstairs to safety. Whenever she misbehaved by growling or baring her teeth at someone, we'd boot her back outside. A number of our friends have children, and we knew that if Nell were to continue to spend time in our home, we'd have to adopt a no-tolerance attitude to any sign of hostility on her part.

It didn't take her long to realize that whenever she acted aggressively she was deprived of warmth, food, and attention, and so she learned to behave herself better around new people.

The fact that every single person who entered our house was encouraged to give her a dog biscuit certainly helped. Soon she was as excited to meet a new stranger as she was to greet us when we returned home from work.

So yeah, when we heard that our downstairs neighbour was moving and needing to find a new home for Nell, we told him she already had a home -- with us. And she's been with us ever since.

We have been amazed and overjoyed to see how far she's come over the past few years. People who used to be terrified of her now love her to bits. She's a really good dog for the most part -- doesn't steal food or chew up our possessions -- and she's simply awesome with all of our friends' kids, who fight over the privilege of feeding her dog treats and getting her to do tricks. Really, if it weren't for her unfortunate tendency to pick a fight with every dog she sees, she would be the perfect dog.

And yet, when I found out I was pregnant, Nell very quickly became my primary source of anxiety. How would she react to the baby? Would she become jealous or hostile? Would she (god forbid) harm the baby?

I read every single thing I could find about dogs and babies, and I have to say, nothing reassured me very much. All the baby experts and dog experts said that anything could happen, no matter how gentle the dog, and stressed the importance of NEVER LEAVING THE DOG ALONE WITH THE BABY FOR EVEN A SPLIT NANOSECOND.

As you can guess, this did nothing to ease my worries. Especially when I read things like, "Be especially vigilant if your dog enjoys chasing small animals, such as squirrels."

Nell absolutely LIVES for chasing squirrels. It's her sole reason for being (well, that and tummy rubs). All of a sudden my pregnant brain was filled with images of Nell chasing a wee baby up a tree, and leaping up at the trunk until the boughs of the tree broke and down came baby, cradle and all. I started envisioning her using the baby as a chew toy, or taking it out into the grassy area between our house and the one next door and burying it in the dirt, like she would a bone.

Okay, so my imagination was doing overtime. What can I say? I was pregnant.

I knew that if Nell ever got aggressive around the baby, that'd be it for her. She'd be gone from this house the very same day. I steeled myself for that possibility, even as I prayed it'd never happen. I absolutely love Nell and am so happy to see what a great dog she has become, but if she ever hurt my baby I'd kill her with my own bare hands.

Thankfully, she has been an absolute DREAM with Milo. I'm not sure if it's because she's female or not, but she has adopted a protective, almost maternal stance towards him. When he was first born, she would come and stand beside us whenever I breastfed him. If he's crying and I'm in another room, she comes and stands in the doorway until I get up, and then she leads me right to where Milo is crying. She frequently licks him on the face and hands, and I swear it's because she likes him, not just because she thinks he's delicious (although she seems to find some of his bodily fluids to be more palatable than I really wish she would).

In the past few weeks, Milo has become fascinated with Nell as well. He'll stare at her, transfixed, whenever he catches sight of her. And when I call her over for some petting, he reaches out toward her. I always move him closer to her, so he can touch her fur and so she can get used to him grabbing for her. ('Cause I know it's going to be a whole other ballgame once he becomes independently mobile and can chase after her.)

Yesterday, while Milo and I were playing, Nell was beside us, clearly wanting a belly rub. Deciding to combine some Nell time with some quality tummy time, I put Milo down on Nell's dog bed with his face right up against her belly, while I scritched her chest. Milo lay there for several moments and I sat there beside him, congratulating myself yet again on finding another way to maximize his tummy time, when all of a sudden I heard a familiar sucking noise.

Yep. You guessed it. Milo was apparently trying to suckle Nell. Whoops. That was probably taking this whole "dog+baby=happy family" thing just a wee bit too far.

I grabbed Milo and lifted him off Nell just as she was turning, startled, to see exactly what the hell he was doing to her. I'm really glad they both seem to like each other so much, but I'd rather she wasn't his wet nurse.

Nell checking out Milo when he was still just a week and a half old.