How can I describe Tula if you have never met her? The only description that comes to mind, to sum her up as a whole, is that she is without a doubt the spawn of Satan. Her hobbies include barking, biting people, biting other dogs, peeing in houses and sleeping (I’m assuming that while she’s sleeping, she is dreaming of barking, biting people, biting other dogs and peeing in houses).
Probably her favorite pleasurable pastime is tearing the heads off her stuffed animals. This is the prime indicator, in my opinion, that she is truly evil. She never bites the arms or the legs or even the stomach area where the little squeaky thing is. She starts at the throat, tears all the stuffing out and continues until the head falls off. She’s probably done this to about a half dozen poor little stuffed dogs, teddy bears, etc.
I can’t imagine what guests think when they come to our house. Unless Tula is already barking at something, she starts the second someone walks in our front door and doesn’t stop until they leave. We tell every fearful guest that she won’t bite unless you stick your fingers in her face. But now that I think about it, they must look around at the stuffed animal graveyard surrounding Tula’s cat bed and think ‘yea, I bet that cute, pink bunny didn’t stick her paw in Tula’s face either and now her head is across the room!’
Here’s the dilemma………..how do we get this squirrel–sized terror to not decapitate our newborn? The only thing we could come up with is to never, ever leave the room with the baby on the ground. We have until he crawls to come up with another plan. For now, this is all we have!
The day we came home from the hospital was Tula’s big test. She had been at my parent’s while we were away and they dropped her off as we were driving home. Jack’s brilliant plan was for me to go in first with one of the baby’s blankets and his hat, so she could start to familiarize herself with this new smell. After a few minutes of smelling and petting, I went outside with the baby and Jack went in to do basically the same procedure.
A few minutes later, I brought the carseat with Tula’s new brother inside. I put it on the ground and honestly, within 2 seconds, Tula was standing in the carseat sniffing like she’s never sniffed before. I thought Jack was going to freak out and boot her across the room, but she was calm and let Tula do her thing. The funny part is that the baby was dead asleep, so he hadn’t moved yet. Tula stood there for awhile observing the tiny intruder when all of a sudden, Zac made a noise and stretched his arm straight in the air. Tula jumped back about 5 feet and went mental. She barked for the next 2 hours.
Jack re-introduced Tula to her new roommate over the next few days. Zac would lay on his stomach on the floor and Tula would come over and sniff his feet, head and her favorite, his $hit-filled diaper.
So far, so good. She has been very friendly and even somewhat protective of Zac. Will she stay this way when he starts crawling? Is she plotting her attack? Who knows! I did witness Zac accidentally punch Tula square in the face and she didn’t retaliate, so that was definitely a positive sign. Tula is very sneaky, so anything is possible. For example, the hat that I brought in for her to smell when we returned from the hospital has been MIA since. We live in a 1,200 sq ft condo! Where is it!?
Only Zac’s big sister knows.
She reminds me of Stewy from Family Guy!