Weird Proportions

One of the first things that people say to me when they first see her, or seeing her for the first time after a long time, is to exclaim in disbelief: "She has such LOOOONG legs!"

And it's true. For some reason, after about 6 months or so Azuki's legs and body started to grow disproportionately with the rest of her body, namely, her strangely small head. In fact, Azuki grew in stages, and not all body parts at the same time. When she was a very small pup, she had this seemingly enormous head because she had a small body. Then, her body grew LONGER, but her legs remains short and stubbly.

We thought she had stopped growing at around 6 months, but we were wrong. After she was spayed, her legs and body suddenly grew another few inches! I had read that spaying/neutering before the growth plates closed would result in a slightly taller dog, but I didn't expect Azuki to have ALL LEGS. Now, this would be very desirable if you were human...but in a dog this means that instead of a round and cuddly dog, I have a skinny, gangly pet with a tiny head. She is like a dog on a stick figure. Sometimes when she is just standing there I swear she is almost SLOUCHING over, acting like an awkward teenage girl who is trying to make herself look shorter than she really is.

As much as I love my dog, I can also be very objective and say that Azuki looks kinda weird. Still cute of course, but in kinda a funny-looking sense. There are definitely many toy poodles who are so much cuter--smaller, rounder, NORMAL LOOKING poodles, and I can't help but wish that my dog would look like them. Not that dogs actually realize or care what they look like, I guess it's just me projecting my own vanities on my dog--just like I can't help but wish my boobs were bigger.

Her pa, however, insists that Azuki is the cutest, and loves her all the same. He thinks from the way people react to Azuki (always stopping her and telling her how cute she is--and it is true, she is a babe magnet), Azuki should be a inu (dog) model despite the fact that her body is so long she has to wear clothes made for the long-bodied Dockson sausage dogs. In many sense that is enormously comforting--I married a man who can accept imperfections in the creatures that he loves.

Now, if my boobs were only bigger...