You cannot judge a dog by its appearance. For example, my dog Frisee, by looking at her, Frisee is an angel with an innocent expression, soft furs, a pair of bright dark eyes, and her graceful skirt wavy tail; all those had tricked us to have adopted her from the Berkeley Animal Shelter 6 years ago. Don't get me wrong. My Frisee is a lovely sweetest dog in our eyes! And she is and will always be. She is our family member. Frisee indeed is an angel… Well, most of the time she is.

My dog Frisee, a loner, who thinks the whole neighborhood is her own backyard. She earns her infamous name by challenging all bypassing dogs. Very few people in my neighborhood welcome her. No one likes her except us.

Frisee has many enemies. Sally, our black cat, is one of them. Frisee and Sally live in the same house but they never interact because they each get their own territories; Sally takes the back of the house whereas Frisee gets the living room, the kitchen and the front deck. Yet Sally gets to go outside to the yard whereas Frisee is confined inside the house. Being confined certainly has made Frisee jealous, we think. Frisee shows her anger by barking at Sally every time when Frisee sees Sally strolling freely outside the yard. Frisee turns wild. One day, Frisee and I returned home from a morning walk, at the yard, Sally jumped out from nowhere; she quickly striked and scratched Frisee at her nose and dashed into the bushes. Frisee got a long scratch on her nose and bleed quite a bit. Poor Frisee, she can never win a battle against Sally. Sally rules.

Frisee also has a strong dislike of the UPS trucks. Frisee pops up from where she sleeps and turn into a wild beast as if she is processed by a demon; she dashes from one end of the house to the other end to chase the truck which is merely driving by. It happens every day at around 2 p.m. Rain or shine.

Now when we see cars come by, we stop because Frisee has shown suicidal acts so many times while we walk down the road. When she sees any car driving by and she jumps onto those oncoming cars! Many heart-attack moments along the road were created by her crazy acts. We often puzzle and wonder what exactly would have triggerred her behavoir. She is a dog. What else can explain it? That is what dogs like to do, I suppose. But I also suspect that our neighbors believe it is becuse of us didn't train our dog well. When a dog is not socially correct, it is the owner's fault. :-(

- Photo by Miaomiao Mia. © 2010 Miaomiao Mia. All Right Reserved.


.