My girlfriend, Billie, and I are getting an apartment. This is definite after a lot of driving around Palm Beach Gardens and knocking on the doors of almost every leasing office in the 33418 zip code. All were very nice inside and outside, and so were the leasing managers. They seemed to have everything we needed and answered "yes" to every question we asked them, except the one for which we didn't want the affirmative.
Us: "Do you have any pet restrictions?"
Leasing Manager: "For what kind of animal?"
Us: "A Doberman."
Quickly I lost patience with answering that question. I'm perfectly aware that a Doberman isn't the most popular dog breed for even the most ardent dog-lovers, let alone a young couple living together in an apartment for the first time, but that's one of the reasons I have chosen a Doberman to be our dog. One of the managers even asked us, with a tone usually reserved for evaluating one's sanity, "Why do you want a Doberman?!" All I could think to myself was, "Why don't you want one?"
There is nothing compared to the feeling of security that comes from a lovable, well-raised, enormous dog, and I haven't had that feeling since Rufus, our family's Bull Mastiff, died more than a year ago. All I want is for me and Billie to have that to come home to everyday, and that shouldn't be license for discrimination.
You know the part in "Fight Club" when the main character is asked to find his "power animal"? Well, my power animal is a female Doberman named Lilly Pulitzer. Society needs to understand that. I never had a friend who's had a Doberman, and I almost never come into contact with these dogs on a day-to-day basis, but I'm beginning to see why when I consider how unfriendly all four of the apartment complexes we visited were toward the fifth smartest dog breed in the American Kennel Club.
Earlier in the year we visited a Doberman breeder at her home in Hollywood, Florida who had a litter of six female Doberman pups and only one male. Billie was a little freaked out when she saw that all the pups had their ears taped up, each one with a different color of florescent tape. She said they looked like antennas, all flopping around on top of their little puppy skulls, the picture of adorability. We also met the mother of the pups and an nine-month-old female, fully-grown, named Jossie, whose doorbell-reactive barking was very good at letting you know you were in a house full of eight other Dobermans.
When I walked toward the kitchen, where Jossie and the puppy crates were separated from the rest of the house by a dutch split door, Jossie was right in front of the door, barking dutifully and never taking her eyes off me. I asked the breeder, "Can I pet her?" Her response to my question was, "Let's see."
I actually could. Not being a total idiot when it comes to large dogs, I gave her my hand, where she could see it, palm up and in front of her nose. This seemed to pass her Doberman test, and we were allowed access to the kitchen for puppy time.
I knew this was the fun part, so I sat down in the middle of the floor while the breeder opened all the surrounding cages while each puppy, one by one, ran toward me with wagging stubs and bouncing antennas. They pounced, played and chewed, the normal puppy shit, while Jossie stayed close to the breeder and the male pup stayed in his cage, apparently shy.
Before we were about to leave, as Billie was chatting with the breeder, one of the pups, with green tape on her ears, sat obediently at Billie's feet looking up at her, ignoring all the play in which her other seven sisters were engaged. When Billie noticed this quiet, expectant pup at her feet she was immediately heartbroken that we couldn't leave with her right then and there, calling her "our little green girl." That mental picture is still the fondest memory I have of that visit.
Meeting Dobermans and realizing that they are exactly as you would expect them to be is easy if you let those expectations arise out of the necessary research required when someone adopts a dog of any breed. You find out that a little education goes a long way, and get frustrated by the reactions of those who posses none of the required knowledge that they should when these dogs are a topic of important discussion.
Luckily an apartment complex does exist that respects our choice of dog. It's less than a mile from both of our jobs and we're moving there September 20th. After having learned that breeders prefer to whelp puppies in the winter, after the stifling Florida summers, I am telling everyone who cares to listen (and more who don't) that all I want for Christmas this year is a Doberman named Lilly Pulitzer.
