Duchess Elizabeth Bettina

The Origin of Eebles

You’ve probably seen Eebles on our instagram at this point. She’s a cheeky little bastard that likes to stick her nose in places that are terribly unhelpful while being quite cute at the same time. She’s a trash gremlin who’s as sweet as cotton candy. She’s a baby that’s just starting to grow out of the puppy phase and still acts as goofy now as she did when we got her at 10 weeks old. Let me tell you about Elizabeth.

My brother-in-law’s brother saw her on the side of the road. It was the last freeze of the latter half of winter in early 2019. There was ice falling from the sky and the roads were treacherous. It was 20 degrees and brutally windy. My brother-in-law was driving with his brother, oh so carefully on the awful roads, when suddenly he spotted a tiny movement in the gutter of the residential road they were driving on. He pulled over and lo and behold that moving lump was a puppy! She was tiny, cold, skinny, and afraid of everything. They searched the area for any other puppies or an adult dog but found no trace of other life. My brother-in-law took her home.

My mom was living with my sister and my brother-in-law at the time. They also have two kids, a son and a daughter. It’s probably obvious that everyone in the house fell in love with the puppy. She was taken to the vet where they weighed her and checked on her health. She was 1.75lbs and didn’t have any health issues, although she was skinny and very hungry. They guessed she was about 9 or 10 weeks old and that she was a mutt with some yorkie in her. The clean bill of health was a relief to everyone and she was the talk of the house. Her favorite place to sleep was on my mom’s chest. The kids adored her. There was talk of keeping her. My niece named her “Sweetie.”

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My sister’s family owns two other dogs, Harley and Max. They’re both VERY big dogs that are a little wild, especially Max. After two weeks or so of observing the dogs together it became very clear that Max wanted to eat Sweetie so hard discussions had to happen. Where was she going to go? Would they take her to a shelter and break the kids’ hearts? I wanted her. Now, I knew at the time that we already had two dogs and a cat and that’s a lot of animal in one house for two people. I still wanted her so it was up to me to convince Miayah….. I showed her a couple pictures. She immediately wanted to meet her. We went to my sister’s house and Miayah fell in love. She was ours.

The first order of business was to rename her. As much as I love my niece, “Sweetie” is a terrible name for a dog. We wanted something pretentious as it’s part of our humor and have already named previous dogs very silly names. We settled on Duchess Elizabeth Bettina, E.B. as her nickname. I loved the idea of calling her E.B. It was short, sweet, and wouldn’t confuse the kids too much because it still sounded like “Sweetie.” The Duchess was born!

We quickly learned that she was a nervous dog. She peed when she was startled and EVERYTHING startled her. There was a time that I was standing in the hallway, Elizabeth was also in the hallway staring at me, and the whole time I was standing there I was talking to Miayah in the other room. Miayah walked into the hallway and when Elizabeth turned and saw her she must have jumped a foot in the air and then immediately peed. It was very very funny at the time but showed us that we had a bit of a problem. This escalated when she met Miayah’s sister’s dogs. The first time she met Zeus she screamed. Not whimpered, not barked, but shrieked at the top of her tiny lungs and wouldn’t stop peeing. Zeus was very confused.

We dealt with the fear for a while. We’d bring small groups of people over and try to get her to interact with them but she would hide under tables and absolutely freak out when they got close to her. We had a Halloween party where we bought a cardboard cut out of a Greek statue and every time she saw it she barked unendingly like a mad woman. We’d try to take her for walks but she wouldn’t make it halfway down the stairs before she panicked at how loud the cars were. She was so unhappy. We decided we needed to do something, so we discussed training.

Now given her fear of other dogs, loud noises, unfamiliar people, and unfamiliar surroundings, we really had to think about the best approach. A public class for puppies wouldn’t do - too many people, dogs, and noises. A private class with a group wouldn’t do, still too many dogs and too many noises. We ended up doing 6 weeks of private lessons, one on one with a trainer. It was a struggle at first. She didn’t want to do anything, she’d cry and hide under a table and ignore the treats we tried to use to incentivize her. She jumped at the slightest noise. Slowly but surely though, we got her to start responding to the training. Now this wasn’t necessarily learning how to sit and shake and that sort of thing. This was more confidence training. We were teaching her that approaching a door and crossing the threshold was safe, that knocking on doors isn’t scary, that new people can be fun, and showing her how to claim a safe space. As a testament to her fear though, she didn’t let the trainer touch her until the 5th week. She’s a stubborn one.

Elizabeth desperately loves Cinnamon and thinks playing with Watson is fun. It didn’t start out that way immediately though. Watson didn’t know what to do with Elizabeth and only tolerated her presence for months in the beginning. Cinnamon tried to attack her the first day she came into the house and got in a lot of trouble; after this Cinnamon avoided Elizabeth like the plague for about two weeks. Slowly but surely though they all started to get along. Cinnamon has always wanted a friend that would chase her around the house. It’s been her number one priority when playing for ages. She runs up to a dog, nips at them, and proceeds to run away in hopes that they’ll give chase. Elizabeth loves this and, after that initial reluctance, they fell into a good rhythm of play time. Eebles was only 2lbs and Cinnamon was 10lbs so there was a gross weight mismatch but Eebs could fit under the coffee table and Cinnamon couldn’t. Elizabeth would chase Cinnamon and then when the tables turned she’d dart under the coffee table to get a break. Now they’re inseparable. Elizabeth loves to sleep on Cinnamon, whether she’s just laying her head on Cinnamon’s back or her whole body is completely draped over her. When Cinnamon is gone I know that Elizabeth will be devastated.

Eebles is a shaggy little monster. I know it’s not immediately obvious from the pretty photos we upload on instagram but her natural hair is AWFUL. We were so surprised when she started to get shaggy. As you have probably noticed from the photos she started out as a perfectly normal looking puppy. She had short hair, was clearly light and dark brown, and there was nothing amiss. After a month or two though she started looking odd. Six months in it was shocking how hairy she was. She didn’t look like the same dog! She gets groomed every couple months because she’s a hairy nightmare. She’s also terribly spoiled since she gets special grooming, although this is because we still want her to be relatively fear-free; a mobile groomer comes to the house and gives her a one on one bath time and cut. Very very spoiled duchess.

Eebles would live outside if she could. Cinnamon and Watson are pretty “indoor” sorts of dogs. Watson wants to go outside, do his business, and come back in immediately. Cinnamon will lay in the sun until she’s sufficiently recharged then come back in. Elizabeth goes outside and is just the happiest little monster. She chases birds, she barks at the neighbor dogs, she lays in the sun, she eats dead things, she rolls around in smelly things, she chases the cat around, she finds ways to sneak out of the yard….. She is the most “dog” dog that either of us have ever owned. It’s endearing all the way up to the point that you smell her, and then it’s no longer endearing. In all seriousness though, I’m happy that we live in a place where we have a yard for her to enjoy. It makes her so happy and that’s all I want for her - happiness.