Keep Your Mitts Off My Mitzi!

When I was growing up, my mother regularly talked about how she hated Pomeranians — “little yappy things,” she called them — and how she hated dogs named Mitzi and would never own one, ever. She had a neighbor when she was young with a vicious little dog that matched this description.

One day when I was about fourteen, I was at a mall with my parents and my mother had gone into a fabric store. My father and I walked into a pet store to kill time, and while we were there, someone brought in a sweet-tempered little dog she wanted to sell.

My father started interacting with the dog and liked it.

Father: “What sort of dog is this?”

Owner: “She’s a Pomeranian.”

Father: “What’s her name?”

Owner: “Mitzi.”

My father lit up like a Christmas tree.

Father: “[My Name], go tell your mother I’m buying a Pomeranian named Mitzi.”

I thought it would be funny to tell her that, so I found her.

Me: “Dad’s buying a Pomeranian named Mitzi.”

I’d never seen my mother look so horrified in her life. She dropped her shopping and stormed off to the pet store. However, by the time we got back, my father had actually bought the dog. My mother stared daggers at him all the way home and said she wanted nothing to do with the dog. 

But within about three days, that dog had my mother totally smitten. She was gentle and mischievous and not at all happy — except when moose came into the yard. The only remainder of her previous insistence was that we were not allowed to call the dog Mitzi but instead called her Mits.

She ended up becoming my mother’s dog until the day she died while out chasing a moose — her favorite activity. My mother ended up with her favorite dog all because it was a breed and name she despised.