I betrayed Jillie :O

Yes, I sold her out due to peer pressure. And I'm none too proud of it.

First, some context: I stopped apologizing for my Yorkies long ago. I'm a big guy, and people, especially guys, frequently tease me about owning little dogs.

At first, it hurt. I didn't want to be labeled a sissy. So I made sure I trained Eddie, my first Yorkie. I put him through obedience school and taught him lots of tricks. When people teased me, I'd just lay a half-dozen tricks on them. That always shut them up.

Eventually, I realized Eddie is so special that he has nothing to prove. If ignorant people made fun of him, I stopped feeling the need to prove them wrong. Eddie had long ago proved himself to me that he was a "real dog," and that's all that mattered. I ignored critics.

My resolve was admittedly tested when I got Jillie. We were quite a sight walking down the street -- me at 225 pounds, Jillie at 3 with a bow in her hair. More than once, I'd hear a neighbor snicker or someone scoff, ''That's not a dog.''

But, as with Eddie, Jillie proved herself to me. She was all dog, and she too had nothing to prove to ignorant people.

Flash forward to yesterday, though, and I suffered a setback. We had just finished a therapy dog visit at the hospital. The director of the PAWS program was following me around so I could get a new badge.

I was holding Jillie, and she looked adorable. Perfectly groomed with a pink topknot in her hair. She'd just wowed a group of a half-dozen kids in adolescent mental health with her array of tricks.

A security guard who was helping me with the badge walked up and immediately said "That's not your dog! That's gotta be hers!", pointing to the director of our program, a woman.

I said, "No, that's mine."

"NO WAY!" he said, laughing. "The bow in her hair? You look more like a Lab guy!"

I couldn't just ignore the guy because he was helping us out. And there was no room to show off her tricks. So I turned to betrayal.

"Well, yeah, I do have a 90-pound Chesapeake Bay retriever at home. And Jillie's more my wife's dog."

That was all true, technically, and it appeased the macho security guard. The razzing stopped.

But as I walked away I couldn't help but think I'd betrayed Jillie. She does 10 times the number of tricks my Chessie does and while she was a present to my wife originally, she's pretty much my shadow every minute we're together. She's my dog, and I'm the one who brushed her and put the bow in her hair.

I guess I'll chalk it up as a lesson learned. If it happens again and I can't ignore someone, I'll engage them by telling them just how special Jillie is. I'll defend her.

I owe her that much for all the love she's given me.

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