As if meeting her future in-laws wasn't stressful enough, Dancing with the Stars pro Karina Smirnoff had to weather an introduction to her soon-to-be "in-paw" as well. Fortunately for the petite hoofer, fiancé Brad Penny's Bernese mountain dog, Isabella, took quickly to the notion of having another female in the house.
"Isabella is gorgeous, but she's a girl and she's about 110 pounds," Smirnoff told PEOPLEPets.com at the premiere of Friskies' Cat Diaries: The First Ever Movie Filmed by Cats. "She's Brad's dog, but she loves me. And now that we're together she's my dog as well."
They say that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, but for those in the know, the shortcut to any animal lover's heart is through his pet. So Smirnoff quickly found a way to bond with her Major League baseball player beau's energetic pup.
"We race," Smirnoff says with a laugh, "Brad has marble or granite floors and they're really slippery, so Isabella and I start running from one side of the house to the other. Then I stop, but she can't stop in time. It's the cutest thing ever!"
While the indoor heats often leave Smirnoff and Penny laughing, and Isabella happily panting away, it's during the newly engaged couple's downtime that the massive working dog ends up doing the bulk of her "work."
"She's a cuddler," Smirnoff says of Isabella. "She gets into bed and literally sits as close to you as possible, to where she's almost sitting on top of you, and she'll lay down and wiggle herself back. She's a frontal spooner!" Who needs a pet Snuggie when you have the pet snuggler?
The ballroom dance pro says that the other lady of the house has her own sense of style and will be sitting pretty this Christmas.
"Isabella's a family member, so she has her own stocking, but with paw prints on top," Smirnoff says, laughing, "She's probably going to get a new rhinestone collar, because she's a girl. But, honestly, she picks out her own gifts. We'll go to the store and she'll walk right up to the pink rhinestone collar and bark at it."
If only everyone made Christmas shopping so easy. Perhaps Isabella will return the favor – and level the playing field – by stuffing Smirnoff's stocking with floor wax ... and some really comfortable socks?
Read more about celebrities' pets on PEOPLEPets.com:
Johnny Depp Babysat Angelina Jolie's Bulldog
Mario Lopez's Pup Suffered from 'Post-Partum Depression' After Meeting Baby Gia
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