5 Little Known Facts About My Dogs

Dogs can be amazingly quirky creatures!  The Paw Print dogs are no exception.  Despite being raised together, in the same conditions, using the same methods, they each have a personality uniquely their own.  I write about my dogs a lot here, but I feel like lately I’ve been focusing quite a bit on reviews and educational posts.  Today I wanted to do something different – something lighthearted and fun.  I’m going to share five little known facts about each of my dogs!

Kitsune

Of course I have to start with Kitsune!  He’s the older of my two boys, at 13 years old, and I consider him to be my first dog.  My family did have a dog when I was a kid, but I wasn’t really the one responsible for caring for her.  When my partner and I got Kit, it was our first time caring for a dog all on our own.

For anyone who doesn’t know, Kitsune is a papillon.  Well…he’s a “reject” papillon.  He’s a pretty far cry from the papillon standard, looks wise at least.  He’s oversized, mismarked, and has one ear that usually likes to flop over while the other one stands.  I also keep his hair trimmed short, which isn’t very typical for the breed.  Kit will never win any dog shows, but he’s completely won over my heart and, if you ask me, that’s a much bigger victory.  Here are five facts that even frequent readers might not know about Kitsune!

Kitsune is a doggy genius!

He’s amazingly smart.  I work hard to keep his mind engaged because if I don’t, and he gets bored, he’s prone to using those smarts to get himself into trouble.  Kit almost always learns new tricks in just one training session, and in 13 years I haven’t been able to find any kind of puzzle toy that can keep him occupied for long.

Kit can be a bit of a divo dog.

He hates getting his paws wet, for example, which is a bit funny considering how much he loves going to the beach.  He sleeps in bed with my partner and I, and will wake one (or both) of us up if the bed situation isn’t just the way he likes it.  Sometimes he just wants to be covered up, or to snuggle next to one of us.  If he decides that he doesn’t have enough room in bed he’ll wake me up and ask to go outside.  When I get up to get ready to take him out he promptly jumps into bed and takes over my spot.

Kit’s best dog friend, other than his brother Fen, is a cute little Pomeranian.

He gets SO excited when he sees his friend.  Kit was actually attacked by a big dog when he was a puppy, and ever since he hasn’t been crazy about large dogs, especially large brown dogs.  Strangely enough, though, his second best friend in our neighborhood is a huge great Dane.

Ever since he was a puppy Kit has had this weird obsession with cleaning ears.

If you got ears, he’ll clean ’em for ya!  Human, dog, rabbit, he doesn’t care what species you are.  He is not at all a fan of my ear piercings, and likes to gently try to pull them out.

Both of my dogs have middle names!

Although I often refer to Kitsune as just “Kit”, his full name is Kitsune Trouble.  Yes, his middle name IS Trouble!

Fenrir

I knew I wanted a second dog pretty quickly after we got Kitsune.  We waited 7 years before we found our Fen, though.  Fen is currently 7 years old.  He’s a miniature sized, bieyed, grey and white Alaskan Klee Kai.  Fen sometimes looks larger than he is in photos, especially if there’s nothing in the picture to compare his size too.  He weighs 18 lbs.

Fen is an amazing little dog when it comes to his pack, but he takes a really, really long time to warm up to anyone he doesn’t know.  He’s also a very high strung little guy, and gets overstimulated pretty easily.  I’ve been working on these issues with Fen since he was young and, little by little, he’s shown a lot of improvement.  He’s a total mommy’s boy and, although he clearly also loves my fiancé too, he’s picked me to be his special person.  I think he’s pretty great too.  Here are five facts about Fenrir that my readers might not already know!

Fen is….not the smartest dog in the world.

It’s kind of hard for me to judge how smart he is (uh..or isn’t) when the only other dog I have to compare him to is Kit (again, doggy genius).  Fen often takes a really long time to learn new things.  A really long time.  I don’t even want to admit how long it took me to fully potty train him.  It’s weird because I can try so hard, for so long, to teach him something and he’ll just not seem to understand.  Then, one day, it just clicks, and from then on he’ll remember whatever it was I was trying to teach him.  He’s so different from Kit in this respect, and takes a lot more work to train, but always gets things eventually.

Fen loves tennis balls!

His favorite thing ever is playing fetch.  If he finds a stray ball outside he makes it his mission to carry it all the way home, no matter how far from home we are.  He refuses to let me help him, he always wants to carry it all by himself.  Thanks to Fen, and to the fact that we live quite close to a tennis court, our house has become the home for wayward balls.  I think about a million of them are currently under my couch.

Bellybuttons are to Fen what ears are to Kit.

Yes, Fen likes to clean peoples’ bellybuttons.  Why yes, it is rather awkward.  Especially since he’s quite single minded when he decides someone needs a good bellybutton cleaning.  He’ll actually try to pull their shirt up on his own.  Dogs are so weird.

Fen is an…interesting…snuggler.

He likes to snuggle with peoples’ heads.  If you’re sitting up he’ll drape himself around your neck like a Fen scarf.  If I’m laying down he’ll snuggle up in the spot between my shoulder and neck, or right up under my chin.  He doesn’t snuggle as much as Kit does, though.  He rarely snuggles with my partner, but likes to be with me.  I’m his person, after all.

Fen’s full name is Fenrir Snowsong.

His middle name is kind of random.  I just thought it fit.  He’s a little snow dog!  But, most of the time, he just gets called Fen!

I had a lot of fun writing this post!  It’s nice sometimes to write something about my boys that’s just fun and doesn’t require any research or anything.  You will have to tell me whether you liked it too, because if enough people did I’ll have to post another one of these someday.  I thought of so many more facts than just the five for each pup, but didn’t want this post to be super long.  Comment below, what are some of the silly little quarks that help make your pet who s/he is?