Puppy love.

In all of my rooting around for attachment information regarding human development, I have come to a conclusion about my dogs.

I would like to think that our two four-legged sons reflect our parenting but I know tat nurture doesn't always hold up to an argument against nature.

Our first dog, Teddy, was a year old when we found him at a local shelter. Quiet and withdrawn, he spent most of his time curled up on a dog cot watching the other mid-sized dogs bumbling around into each other. He seemed calm and cute enough to take home so he moved into our apartment with us the day after we signed the lease. We have never known life in Atlanta as adults without Teddy. Teddy, however, knew life before us. We're not sure if we can blame abusive or neglectful parents for Teddy's neurotic, antisocial, malephobic, dog aggressive behavior but we like to. We might also blame it on Teddy's specific brain chemistry or his breed. Neither Whippets nor Basenjis are terribly social or team players and both are dog aggressive.

Donnie, our flower child, came into our lives almost two years later at the age of three months. His mother had been picked up by a rescue agency before birth and he and his litter mates were born into a foster family's warm house and cared for by children and adults. He came home to live with us, bullied slightly by his older brother but raised, for all intents and purposes, as the worlds largest lap dog. He is hyperactive but easy going and has rarely met a person or dog that he hasn't cared for. Again, while pitbulls lean on the side of being slightly dog aggressive, they are often social with the ones they grew up with. As far as people are concerned, unless specifically trained otherwise, most bully breeds would literally walk through fire for their people and generally make terrible watch dogs unless the intent is to lick the stranger to death.

As I sat reading Jonathan Haidt's discourse on different attachment types, I thought, my goodness, Teddy is terribly maladjusted! He has terrible separation anxiety but will run to the far ends of the earth as soon as we get to a dog park, ignoring other dogs and people, preferring to spend his time alone. He will, though, push his way into any situation in which Donnie appears to be receiving love. In many ways, he fits into the stereotype of children (and then adults with RAD (reactive attachment disorder) and because of that, Kellen and I have been inclined to associate his bizarreness with his prior life.

In our version of attachment, more love is better, as in the case of Donnie whose only discomfort in the past two years has been revoked bed privileges after his fourth destroyed puppy bed. He has, now, though, earned back a bed which has remained (knock on wood) intact for three weeks, now.