Perry: a Retrospective, Part 2

Perry was a very sketchy dog, not very trusting at first, and always shaking.
He shook from the minute we picked him out, to the second he made peace with this world.
His entire life, start to finish, shook.

The shaking was constant through all of his 11 years. I will never know if this was because of something that happened in his life, or just because.

He was very afraid of some things when we first got him.
Brooms for one. The first time I picked a broom up in his presence, he cowered and I put the broom away.

He wouldn't go into the basement for the first 2 years he lived with us, in fact, he would stay far away from the open door for a while.

One thing that really upsets me is the fact that Perry cowered at the sight of Scott's gun when he took it out of it's holster (which he does on an almost daily basis). The first time, we both thought, "why should a dog be that afraid of a gun". We started thinking that a dog afraid of a gun must have had some horrible incident with one, one which is burned into his little doggy memory. This never repaired itself. He was always afraid of guns. I feel so terrible that I couldn't quell his fear of guns.

Ultimately, he did start going into the basement, and stopped being afraid of brooms. The gun thing, he never got over.

He never stopped shaking either. I secretly called him 'Shakes McGee'. Ok, not so secretly. I don't know how many people ever heard me call him that, but he knew I was talking about him when he heard me say it.

Ok, so the shaking was not all that bad. We called it the 'stripper dance', he was very good at it. He was prescribed some medication for his shaking years and years ago, to calm him down... I gave it to him once. He was not a pill popping dog, he prefered to be natural. The one and only time I gave him 'that medication' he acted drunk and surley, I felt horrible. He never had it again.

Happy shakey dog. vs. cold surley drunk dog. I chose happy.

'Shakes McGee' yep, that's my 'P'.

To be Continued...