RiverBender Blog: Dog Days of Summer with My New Best Friend

I am a cat person.

Nothing against dogs; I just grew up around cats. To be honest, I simply haven’t spent much time around dogs before. I’ve never owned a dog. I like dogs when I hang out with them, but it takes me a second to feel them out and get comfortable.

So what better way to test my comfort levels than by going on a four-day trip with a German Shepherd? This was exposure therapy at its finest.

The dog and I got off to a rocky start. Named Waylon, this German Shepherd was a sweetheart with his owner — my best friend — but notoriously protective. In other words, he’s a good dog. But for me, a stranger to Waylon who kept getting too close to his favorite person, the dog scared me just a little bit. I was a threat, so he was threatening. He barked every time I approached.

When it was decided that my friend and I were going to take a trip and Waylon was going to come along, I was a little skeptical. Remember, I’m not super cozy around dogs to begin with. Here was the biggest dog I had ever seen, and we weren’t quite friendly yet. How in the world were we going to manage a road trip?

Exposure therapy started a few weeks before the trip. I would come over to the house with my pockets loaded with treats, Waylon would bark at me, I would give him all of the treats over a 20-minute period, and then I would leave. Slowly but surely, we hoped that he would come to see me as friend, not foe, and a treat dispenser.

I will say right now that I did not make this process easier. “Don’t show fear,” my friend warned me every time I came over. Then, standing stiff as a board, I would spend the next 20 minutes eyeing Waylon and offering treats with a shaky hand. In turn, he gave me quizzical looks. He was a gentle giant, taking the treats from me with easygoing nibbles and soft brown eyes. I still jumped every time he barked.

But Waylon and I had one thing in common: We love his owner. She wanted Waylon and me to get along, so there was a truce declared between us. And with this in mind, we set off on our trip.

At first, he hesitated around me. He no longer barked when I approached, but he still seemed to find me confusing. Who was this new human? I found him equally perplexing. How do I handle this dog?

As I soon learned, it wasn’t that deep. Waylon truly is a sweet dog at heart. Like most animals, he wanted attention and treats, and my friend and I gave him plenty of both. When I ate dinner, he stood at my feet, waiting to see if I would give him any of the human food he was forbidden to eat. When my friend stepped outside to grab something from the car, he whined by my side, waiting impatiently for her to return and — finally! — accepting the comforting pets I offered.

But the real win came at night. I was falling asleep when I felt something heavy land on my legs: Waylon, coming to sleep on top of me. We spooned each other all night long. By the time we woke up, we were buddies.

The lesson I’ve learned here? Dogs aren’t really that nerve-wracking. They’re just like humans; they want to feel safe and they want to make sure their people are safe. As soon as I stopped acting scared, Waylon stopped viewing me as something scary. In fact, we’re more than comfortable with each other now. We’re besties.

I spent the rest of the trip cuddling with Waylon and coming up with pet names for him. There’s nothing like calling a 90-pound German Shepherd a “little baby puppy” and watching him wag his tail in response. The trip itself was fun, but the real win was Waylon. In the dog days of summer, I’ve finally become a dog person.

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