My first service dog was a purebred golden rescue. The service dog agency I go through uses *all* rescues for their hearing dogs, and tries to use as many rescues as they can for their service dogs (having purebreds is a little more important for service dogs because they're so much bigger, so what might be a small snappishness or skittishness problem in a hearing dog can be dog *bites* for a less mobile person who doesn't have good reflexes and the dog dragging the wheelchair behind them in a service dog... not that purebreds can't be snappish or skittish, of course). Anyway, I was terrified of dogs at the time because all of the dogs I'd known had been the wildly enthusiastic type that knocked me to the ground. They brought out Buddy (yeah, another Buddy... but it was apt), and he *slowly* crossed the room to me, *slowly* stretched out his neck, *slowly* licked my hand, and then very slowly rested his head in my lap. Sold. He was the most gentle, wisest dog I've ever known. We had 11 years together as a "team," and he was there every step of the way, always calm, always obeying commands on the first try, from the time I was a squeaky voiced four year old. I had no idea just how amazing he was at the time, although I told him so every day.
.... then I got Leo, who was 120 lbs of hyperactive bouncy two year old whose favorite method of showing his affection was to leap onto my lap with giant front paws, try his hardest to get his back paws up on my lap too, and plant a gooey kiss on me from my neck to my hairline.... every time he looked over and saw me. Just in case I forgot how awesome I was, cause I was awesome and he was awesome and the whole world was awesome and holy crap, is that my tail? I didn't know I had a tail, look at that, isn't that cool? Oh, retrieve something, yeah sure, here you go - *thwip*, covered in gooey drool - Look at that over there, do we know him? Can we go say hi anyway, please please please please... oh, we're in *class*? Nobody told me it was *class*.... I'll be good. Hang on, lemme kiss you again, you wiped it all off - *slurp* Oh, sit, yeah, sure, sitting's good - oh my god I think that girl has ICE! ICE ICE ICE ICE ICE - no, you said sit.... oh god, sit, ice, life is so *hard*!"
He was *exhausting*.... and my goofy (huge) toddler, because his temperament *never* changed till the day he died - he tackled everything with boundless enthusiasm and no second guessing whatsoever. Unfortunately, he also developed severe epilepsy when he was about 5, so I had to "retire" him early because it was dangerous (for him) to be in public places when he might have a 10 minute grand mal at any minute (seizure meds helped, but not enough to make his seizures in any way reliably predicted). We made do with the house, the yard, and the dog park, and got 9 more years after that. Something broke in me when he died... not sure why this time and not last time, but I haven't yet been able to make myself put in for another dog... my heart's with my first two boys. One of these days, I'll get back on the wait list and do it all again... except, of course, it'll be a totally different experience yet again.
Funny you mention the barking/running/growling in his sleep thing... Leo did all that, plus eating, drinking, licking, and my favorite, the two-headed monster snore. To this day, I wish I'd thought to get that on video, because no one who didn't witness it believes me... but he snored exactly like the Two-Headed Monster from Sesame Street. My sister, an avid watcher of the same, found this *hilarious* each and every time he did it. So did I, to be honest... it was uncanny!
Give Nugget a hug for me.
Oh, and stealth vaping - someone's probably already answered by the time I post this, but here we go: One of the most common, although by far not the only, way to stealth vape is to take 3/4 of a hit or so and then take your lips off the mouthpiece but continue to inhale (just air). When you exhale, little to no vapor will emerge. There are lots of other ways to minimize vapor so you can vape stealthily, but that's one example.
Of course, the bigger/longer your setup, the harder it is to stealth vape, too... an 808 or a smallish Ego, you can completely or mostly conceal in your hand.... the MVP2, not so much, unless you have truly massive hands.