Miss Jackson is Going to Confuse Our Dog

So, yesterday I had lunch with one of my oldest friends and her gorgeous almost six-week-old baby.  After lunch, we came back to our house to visit, which provided our standard poodle Fiona with her first EVER glimpse of a human baby.  It didn't even occur to me until we walked in that Fiona really had never seen a baby before.  She's been around toddlers, but not infants. We walked in, Fiona careened down the stairs and toward the front door as she always does, but instead of jumping up on me like the crazy dog she usually is, as soon as she saw my friend and baby E., she stopped suddenly and sat down in the middle of the floor.  She could not stop staring at him and was visibly confused.  Every now and then she would look at him and then look at me, like, "Do YOU know what this is?"  

Usually when someone comes over to visit, Fiona tries to make friends immediately.  She has no idea how large she is and doesn't have a lot of respect for personal space, but with H. and baby E., she was extremely sweet and cautious.  They sat on the sofa but instead of jumping up there with them, which she would usually at least try to do, she stayed on the floor and just approached slowly and sniffed carefully, from an appropriate distance (well, almost appropriate.  Relatively speaking, appropriate).  Then she walked around to the other side and did the same thing.  Every time baby E. made a noise, her ears perked up and she looked back at me, like, "Is he okay?!"  She was confused, a little bit scared, and totally transfixed.  

We can't wait to see her meet Miss Jackson.  Yesterday's encounter made me even more excited about that, because although she was perplexed, she was very sweet and interested.  We expect that she might experience some jealousy, but mostly we think she will be very protective.  

Sammy, of course, did not acknowledge our guests in any way.  We expect he will similarly ignore M.J.