A New Addition to the Family
Because I am completely insane, I went and did something stupid. I allowed Junior to get a dog. Now before you start, I love dogs. But the agreement with Junior is that it’s not my dog. Now that sounds really good--except there’s one tiny flaw in the whole “it’s Junior’s dog” thing. I’m home all day (well, except when I am practicing my mad shopping skills, of course). Junior, the dog’s “owner,” is at school all day. Or basketball practice. Or at friends’ homes. Now, let me see, who is going to take care of Junior’s dog while he is out gallivanting through town?
Right. That would be me. The person who doesn’t own the dog.
Okay, maybe it’s not so bad. First of all, she’s small. So it isn’t like I’m trying to keep a moose-sized animal off the couch or anything. However, I have spent the past week watching my nice clean carpet get stained. Potty training is so not my thing. I mean, I’m trained, of course. And the rest of my human family is also. However, the canine is not so trained.
This is not a good thing. I’ve spent the last week following her around the house, trying to catch her before she turns my family room into a giant urinal. Every hour, I make her go outside where she stands around and licks the wind. Finally, I let her inside, where she runs straight to the family room and goes to the bathroom. And may I just say she is the fastest urinator on the planet? Blink and you miss it. Unless you’re outside with her, of course. Because it just isn’t happening out there at all.
But the good thing about Kirby (yes, we named her for the vacuum; it’s all in the way she eats) is that she’s teaching me something valuable: how to be humiliated with grace and acceptance. Take day two of Kirby’s inhabitation of our home. Junior walked her down to a friend’s house so she could have a play date with their dog. Unfortunately, the dog wasn’t home. So he walked her back. Then he went back to the friend’s house so he could play over there.
Now, along comes Mom, who makes the incredibly stupid mistake of opening the front door. Silly me. The dog, which, with the exception of her walk, has done nothing but lie on the couch and eat treats all day long, suddenly launched herself out the front door like a rocket has been shot out of her posterior.
Which left me a bit shocked. So I started after the little canine escapee, screaming her name, which she didn’t know yet. And I was wearing my slippers, which meant I was actually doing a sort of dance: shuffle, shuffle, run, lose the slipper, shuffle, shuffle, run, trip over my own feet. Yes, I did look exactly as stupid as it sounds. And all the while I screamed “KIRBY” at the top of my lungs. So for all my neighbors knew, there was a crazed shuffler attempting to run through the neighborhood, yelling at her vacuum cleaner.
Do you see what I mean about the humiliation?
And wait! There’s more. We have a semi-lovely iron garden gate. Unfortunately, said gate happens to have pickets just wide enough for the dog to get through. Which not one member of my family thought to check, of course. So, a few days later, when she refused to come in the house at all, I thought nothing of leaving her on the outside couch, sunning herself while I grabbed a shower. And that’s why all my neighbors got to see a dripping wet crazy lady trying to find her escaped dog.
Now you see what I mean about the humiliation, right?
Of course, the humiliation thing goes both ways. Every time I let that dog into the backyard, she streaks across the lawn and attacks a resin pig. Yes, the dog is fighting with yard art and sadly; I think she might be losing. Oh, and for a dog named after a vacuum, she is shockingly terrified of them. In fact, the very sound of a vacuum scares the poo out of her. Literally.
But all in all, she’s a good dog. Or she will be once we get her potty trained. And by we, of course I mean me. The person who doesn’t own the dog.