Seven-week-old Willie was not only emotionally fragile when I brought him home. I was told that his bones were so soft at that age that leaving him unattended with a rowdy Pug puppy would leave him vulnerable to permanent injury. So while I didn't want to leave them in their crates all day while I was at work, I had to put up a fence in the small kitchen to keep him away from Oates. I wonder what went on as they stared at each other through the wooden fence all day.
When I shared with the breeder that I was worried that Oates would always be the bully, she chuckled and said, no one pushes around a Shiba.
While Willie seemed so meek and small and shy, he would occasionally show some fire when Oates went too far by baring hist teeth and snapping at him. This still happens today.
I was aware what a bizarre experiment it was, pairing two disparate breeds. Pugs were social and goofy and not terribly bright but instinctual and earthy. Shibas by contrast are often shy, serious, very cerebral and sensitive. I guess I hoped they would complement each other and maybe some of their attributes might rub off on the other.
In those early days they would chase each other around and I'd hear constant bloodcurdling screams, only to look up or head to another room and find one pinning the other, sometimes with their jaws on the limb or even head of the other.
I was worried that they hated each other, and that this was a disastrous idea. It took me a while to distinguish fighting from playing, and then to understand that for dogs the former is often really just the latter.
And then it took me years to see how much they are actually very attached to each other. Especially having spent over a dozen years together since they were babies.
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