Thank Goodness for Gigantor

Mr. T and McGee right after they met.

One of the more baffling aspects of our little McGee's feisty personality is that, while most dogs put her in a frenzy, she is in dog love with one big fellow: Mr. T. Granted their love sometimes seems a bit one-sided, but I'm going to go ahead and call it dog love even if it sometimes seems like Mr. T does the majority of the loving and McGee plays hard to get. We have spent lots of time reflecting and speculating about this strange situation: why does The McGee love Mr. T and ONLY Mr. T? Here are some of the potential reasons we've come up with:

1. He's automatically part of the pack. When we went to the shelter to pick our little doggie up, T came along. We wanted to be sure that the two of them got along since we spend so much time with T's family (according to family, McGee and T are the dog equivalent of cousins). They were introduced off leash in a play yard and neither showed any sign of aggression. If anything, the reaction we got from McGee was, "You're not very interesting, I'm going back to my dirt hole now."

She likes to sleep in his armpit. He likes to let her.

2. Mr. T is ginormous. Multiply McGee's weight by three and add 40 pounds and that's how big he is. Our mini pittie can easily stand beneath him as though she is inside a dog house made of... dog. Maybe she just instinctively knows that she's too wee to really get the best of him.

3. Or maybe she just knows she's in charge. Mr. T is a marshmallow and McGee is undoubtedly THE BOSS.

4.  Love. T is just about the mushiest, most lovable 190 pounds of animal I've ever met. His mission in life is TO BE LOVED AND TO GIVE LOVE TO OTHERS AT ALL COSTS. Never mind the gallons of slobber that send his favorite people running for rolls of paper toweling, forget about the fact that he cannot fit in any one person's lap, and who cares if you're a tiny (to him) McGee dog trying to pin him to the ground and sit on his head and fart, he will love you just the same and pine for you when you are out of his sight. That's just how he rolls. McGee may have resigned herself to the fact that she cannot escape his unconditional love.

5. She really wants dog friends and Gigantor is the only one who can put up with her antics. There's no denying it, our pup has got no social skills. Seeing her trying to interact with other dogs is similar to when Stitch interacts with humans for the first time: bad news and hilarity, until you realize you just want to cry and yell and WHY DON'T YOU SPEAK ENGLISH FOR THE LOVE OF MONKEYS YOU DOG BRAINED DOG-O-SAURUS REX!!! T's big advantage again here is his sheer size. All he has to do is stay standing and turn his body in circles and McGee has to run laps to keep up. Not to mention how high she has to jump if she wants to be eye to eye with him. Usually it takes approximately 5-10 minutes for playtime to graduate to nap time.


Bed Swap. These two sure nap a lot...

We thank our lucky stars every day for our enormous Mr. T. Without him, McGee would be a lonely, friendless dog indeed. And while T and McGee are no Romeo and Juliet (I'm thinking more Beauty and the Beast with some irony and subversive swapping of gender roles), it is a love story that I am very grateful exists.

Does your dog have dog friends? How do you set your dog up for successful relationships with other dogs?