The Strangest Dog

Okay, this question has been on my mind for a while now. Maybe you can help. In August, I went to stay with grandparents in New Jersey for two weeks while my mom and dad were traveling. By the way, my grandma and grandpa have the biggest house in the world - at home we only have one room! (My mom refers to it as a "studio," but let's face it, it's really just a room.) They also have a dog run in the back. Right there behing the house! There are never any other dogs in it, though. Just me. And Mitzi. Which brings me to my point.

Now, living in new York, I meet a lot of dogs. I've seen just about everything. Mitzi is a little different, though. She has stand-up ears like me, and her snout is pretty smushy, too. (Though not as much as mine. I take pride in being the smushiest.) But - and I mean this in a nice way - something is a little funny about her. For one thing, she never barks. When my grandma pets her she makes a sound in her throat...sort of a purrr. She can make her tail get all big and bushy when she's upset. I don't know much about tails, since I barely have one, but I don't think this is normal dog behavior.

I guess I'm a little jealous about this one, but Mitzi can jump up on anything. If there's something yummy on the kitchen table, and my grandma's not around, she can just leap up there and nab it! The thing is, she is so particular about what she eats she hardly even wants it. That is just not fair. Hey, I'll take a dust bunny if I can't get anything better. Not Mitzi, that snob. It's got to be fish or something.

I tried really, really hard to be friendly to Mitzi. I invited her to play chase every time she deigned to walk near me, but she would just hiss and run upstairs. (It's no trouble for her to get over the baby gate, after all.) She barely even sniffed me. She seemed to think I was in her territory or something.

Anyway, I was wondering, does anyone know what kind of dog Mitzi is? She's family, after all, and I want to be friends, if she would just give me a chance. Maybe if I looked up her breed characteristics, I could try to appeal to her temperment.

Okay, well, I haven't yet resigned myself to the fact that there's absolutely no more peanut butter in my kong yet, so I'm going to go play with it some more. Let me know if you have any ideas!