We have two dogs in our house who are
full-time members of our family. They live a good life, I’d say. They get multiple meals
every day. They have a warm place to sleep in the winter that's indoors and a cool
place in the summer. They have a backyard to roam around, although they prefer
to be inside among the humans for the most part. They get snacks. They
have toys. They get bones to chew on. They get presents at Christmas time. Doggy
cookies once in a while, too. Overall, there’s not much that is expected of
them. They do alright as far as a canine’s life goes.
Slim is the newest doggy member of the
family. He’s a full-bred chocolate lab, which you’d reason would make him smart
and graceful. To put it nicely, he’s an utter dope. I say this lovingly but
also with a massive dose of frustration. Being a dope is all fine and good if your
dopiness isn’t causing headaches for everyone around you, which isn’t the case with
Slim. He’s a dope in the sense that he’s never matured in any perceivable way.
Not logic. Not wisdom. Not sophistication. Nothing. In fact, I’d say other than
expanding massively in the physical sense, he hasn’t matured whatsoever since, say,
two months old. He’s remained just as simple-minded and moronic. Again, I say
this is mostly in a loving manner. But there are those days when Slim eats a
pan of bacon grease or breaks down the fence and proceeds to eat half my summer
garden yet another year or digs up the grass that just started to grow or helps
himself to another full-sized portion of cat poop and makes everyone in his
vicinity pay the price hours later that, well, I don’t find Slim’s dopiness so
loveable. My greatest wish for Slim is that he’d grow up and branch out a bit,
that he’d concern himself with more than just obtaining food and sleeping on our
bed. But who am I to set expectations? It’s his life to live after all.
Priscilla is a miniature collie colored
black and white and is named in honor of Elvis’ wife. Unlike Slim, she’s not a
dope. She’s intelligent and loving, but she’s also calculating. She circumvents
and schemes to get an extra snack. She outsmarts Slim, which isn’t hard to do,
but still impressive to witness. She waits patiently for food to fall to the floor.
She throws up roadblocks. When that doesn’t work, she just powers her way past
Slim to get what she wants. She’s a diva when she needs to be; she lurks when
that is what is required. But Priscilla isn’t focused solely and 100% on food
as Slim is. She likes attention, too, and she commands a good petting and
rubbing when she wants. She howls when she’s happy and excited. She demands
respect and knows she has the goods. She also doesn’t tolerate Slim’s grade
school, “uh, der, uh . . .” mentality any more than she must. He’s a fellow
canine, so there’s some unavoidable relationship with him she must share, but Priscilla
is the boss. Make no mistake about it. I respect her for that. I respect her
more because she’s faithful and loyal and she sees the big picture.
The surrogate member of our doggy family
is Artemis Amidala, my son’s pouch who seems to visit quite often due to my
wife’s insistence. Artemis, in fact, is a frequent overnight visitor, which is
fine for the most part. Slim and Priscilla like her fine. Even our cats aren’t
too put off by her presence. And I like Artemis quite a bit, too. She’s docile.
She’s cute. She’s mostly quiet. She’s not needy like Slim, but she’s
affectionate like Priscilla. And Artemis is extremely smart. She’s nobody’s
fool. She’s the only dog I know of, in fact, with a Facebook profile. If there’s
a downside to Artemis, it’s that she’s also a gutter-gut and isn’t above using
her freaky springy legs to jump high on a counter top and retrieve a little cat
food snack to tide her over. This leads me to the one thing I don’t like about
Artemis. The presence of food not meant for doggy stomach wreaks havoc on her digestive
system. Thus, when her counter-top sneakiness fills her gut with food not
fitting for a small pup, the result is gross. Put candidly, Artemis is prone to
sneak a healthy-sized, smelly dump in the middle of the night in the bedroom—a
room that’s already overcrowded on any given night with humans, cats, a
man-sized dimwitted dog, and another dog. Additional unsavory aroma is exactly
what we don’t need. I’m not sure why Artemis doesn’t just wake someone up and let them know she’s in need of a visit to the outdoors. She has no problem rubbing
her wet nose up against me at any other time of the day. Yet, she doesn’t. She
just sneaks off unattended and does her sneaky business. And so, the only
warning as to what awaits one in the form of a nasty landmine on the floor is
the sweat-inducing odor emitting from said landmine.
Whether I asked for it or not, my adult
life has been one in which dogs have seemingly always been present. Some days
when I’m freezing my bum off while chiseling dog poop out of frozen ice in the
backyard or when Slim steals another loaf of bread off the kitchen counter (or
soup ladle to lick clean or bag of popcorn or bag of bubble gum or Valentine
Day’s candy or God only knows what else), I’d just as soon never see a dog
again. I just as soon never smell wet dog hair or spend another sleepless night
awake because the doggy snoring going on next to me is louder than a truck. I’d
just as soon never wipe cat litter off Slim’s wet nose or have to replace
another cell phone because Slim unwittingly threw up on the present one in the
middle of the night and decimated the internals with his funky projectile. I
damn sure would just as soon never have to go through the pain of losing another
four-legged friend because his time has come to an end.
But the pain and frustration and
annoyance are fleeting. My irritation passes soon enough and I come back to the
realization of what joy a dog brings to life. I realize how much aggravation they
put up from me. I realize how quiet and boring the house would be without them. I realize
the protection and watchful eye they keep on my four-year-old daughter. I realize that there would be a huge void.
I may speak ill of my dogs now and
again, but I love them truly, and I’m thankful they’ll be waiting at the door
when I get home each night barking their fool heads off and hitting me up for a
snack of some sort.
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