So last week, Thursday night in fact, it was 11 pm and I was about to go to bed. I had been up late working on some deliverables, so Sunny was already asleep. I’m turning off all the lights upstairs, checking on the kids, about to close my bedroom door and I hear the door open tone. You know, the sound the door sensor makes when it’s opened. Well, not only did I hear it, so did my dogs.

Let me first tell you a little about them. Lily is my 5-year-old 13 lb. Maltese. She’s my princess. She loves to wear clothes; yes, she probably has more clothes than most people. She’s a diva when it comes to eating and loves to be carried upstairs as opposed to walking. She really does think that I gave birth to her, so she’s VERY protective of me − even from Shaan, my youngest child. Lily is thoughtful, assessing, and her growl is low and comes from her belly.

Maya is our 1-year-old, 35 lb. MINI (nothing mini about her) Goldendoodle. We got her last year when Shaan said he needed a dog since he and Lily have a love / hate relationship like most younger siblings. Well, we got him the dog with the promise that he would take care of her. I thought we’d get another Maltese, but no, they wanted a bigger dog that could act as a guard dog as well. Hmmm…. More on that to come. Well Maya’s bark is really loud and she’s fast. She scares people when they come, but only because they don’t know that all she wants is to be loved and given belly rubs. If you walk towards her, she’ll run away. Maya also loves to eat anything she can find, especially off the floor, and always has a toy in her mouth. She’s that happy outgoing baby that loves to play.

So, now that you know more about them, please do remember because I’ll surely mention them in a future story since I learn so much from them as well. But let’s get back to the story. So, the door opens and we hear the alert. Maya’s ears perk up first and she bolts, running down the stairs like lightning. Lily follows immediately. She’s a little slower, her body is smaller with those tiny legs, so you see her booty bouncing as she takes the stairs down (so cute). Maya is barking loudly, making sure the entire world knows she’s coming. Lily is barking as well, but there’s a deep guttural growling along with it.

Now I’m coming and standing at the top of the stairs over the kitchen. I call out, “Rohan, is that you?” My son was at the gym, so I wasn’t sure. We hear nothing. Maya comes racing back up and sits on the step by my feet, looking up at me like, “What are you going to do, Mom?” Lily however, who’s now in the kitchen, looks at me and then towards the door, and starts walking into the dark towards the garage. Growling as she goes, she’s going to see who is there. She’s fearless, all 13 pounds, as she heads into the dark. Maya wants me to pick her up − all 35 lbs. of her, as I come down the stairs. Now I know you can only imagine me carrying Maya down the stairs, but it was truly as funny as it sounded.

So, I make it down the stairs, not sure what robber I’m going to stop while carrying Maya, maybe I could throw her at him. I don’t know. I see Lily, in the dark barking at the garage door, low to the ground, teeth bared. And then all of a sudden her tale begins to wag. It’s Rohan; he had his headphones on and couldn’t hear us calling for him. Once Maya finally sees it’s him, she jumps down, pushes Lily out of the way with a butt check (imagine hockey players on ice going for the puck, that is Maya butt checking Lily) and assumes the position for belly rubs.

After I’m done scolding my son for scaring us, I start to laugh. You see, Lily may be smaller in size than Maya, but she definitely has more courage. Her resolve to walk into the dark, without a thought of who might be there, shows that size doesn’t matter. She is also extremely loyal, and her need to protect her mom kicked in more than any fear she may have.

Maya may have been bigger, but we see that she was actually scared. Now we can attest that to age as well, but misconceptions about bigger dogs being scarier than little ones is just that, a misconception. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how tall you are, or how much you weigh, it’s the size of your heart that defines how strong you truly are. And for Lily, we know, that both her heart and her bite are pretty mighty – all 13 lbs. of them.

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