Is it just me who goes through animal ownership phases? When she’s a high maintenance puppy and her personality is still forming, I pour myself into her. Once I get her trained to be a suitable companion for the long haul, doing plate pre-wash, fry pan scrub, spill pickup on a reliable basis, I forget about her.
Just lately I’ve been thinking on our half-hearted dog walks how much fun it used to be to take her out every day someplace with new smells to light up her circuitry. Only once since the boys went back to school have I taken her to a park where she can run around and smell all the smells. In fact, I’m embarrassed to admit my rock bottom dog loyalty, but on our half-hearted walks around the block I’ve been already thinking about the next pet. I’m thinking maybe a chia pet.
I’ve been too preoccupied lately for a real pet. I haven’t noticed when Maggie is hovering by the door with her legs crossed. But she’s a problem-solver, that one. She takes herself down to the mancave and craps on the carpet behind my husband’s lazy boy. The kids come home from school, run down there to play, yell back upstairs “Maggie crapped!” And I clean it up. Usually it only happens on the rare occasion that I have a morning appointment and didn’t have time to give her the full round-the-block two-dump walk. If I only give her a partial, she will communicate her feelings about that in her own special way — on the carpet in the mancave.
Up until recently it has been manageable and understandable, few and far between. But lately, I think Maggie senses my plunging pet owner loyalty. Winter is coming and I’m not looking forward to taking her on freezing cold walks. I wish she would just go on the front lawn like other dogs. But she is a special needs dog. She suffers from Not in My Front Yard Syndrome. She needs the walk. She senses my “next dog” fantasies on these walks, the way my husband sensed that I was going to cut him off from cable altogether. Just when I was good and ready to find the number and make the call he turned me on to Showtime. He got me hooked on Hung and Weeds and Californication. There’s no coming back from that kind of entertainment. He’s got me jonesin’ for it. I’m hooked. I can’t just say no.
Maggie, like my husband, has an excellent intuition. When she picked up on my chia pet fantasies, she started crapping in the basement even when I did give her the full round-the-block after-meal walk. She knew, in her dog genius way, that the kids would bring it up during dinner and my husband would find out that I have been shirking my dog responsibilities. She’d pit Dad against Mom and come out the winner. She knows how it works.
My biggest mistake was not reacting during dinner when Vincent reported how often he has found Maggie crap down in the basement recently. I should have scolded the dog immediately. Or the child. Not reacting implied I’ve known about this for a while now and have been keeping it to myself.
My husband reacts as if I’ve been keeping secret a line of credit on the house to pay for multiple maxed out charge cards and now our perfect credit rating is in the toilet, like one of those driveling shopaholic hoarder moms on Oprah who can’t fess up to her husband in the privacy of their over-mortgaged home but can tell 200 million viewers on national tv. And Oprah, who you know is going to say, “Giiiirl, what were you thinking!” And the entire audience is going to laugh and shake their heads no, all judgy-like, and alligator tears will roll down the guest’s cheeks. It’s great for ratings. But this is nothing like that.
Skye turns to me and I can feel it coming. The questions. The shoulds. The why don’t you’s. “She should be put in her crate if she’s doing that.”
Maggie hears the word “crate” and hides under the dining room table.
My stomach tightens at the idea of jailing her. It’s not her fault. She is just trying to get me to love her and not a chia pet and this is the best way she knows how. I know if I explain my logic to my husband he’s going to think I’m nuts. So if I have any deep dark secrets I keep from my husband, it’s that I’m nuts. And frankly, that’s not much of a secret.
I just don’t think Oprah would know how to interview me if that were all I had. But my husband thinks this is the big cheese. “How long has she been doing this?” he insists on knowing.
“Please, I’m eating.” I say while shoving food into my empty mouth.
After dinner I lay down on my bed to watch a Weeds rerun I’ve already seen twice on Showtime before I have to take off for Parent Information Night at the middle school. Maggie saunters in and is about to jump up on the bed to snuggle.
I frown at her and say sternly, “No pooping in the basement, Maggie.”
It might be a delayed punishment, which they warn against in the child-rearing books. You should give children consequences right after the offending behavior. It doesn’t apply to dogs. She knows. She cower-scurries out of the room and hides in her crate.
The next morning she slides her water dish across the floor. It makes a noise when she slides it that always results in me getting up instantly and refilling it for her. She walks up to the front door and pounces on it to be let out. I hear the noise and take her out. She perches herself on the back of the couch and barks at things that aren’t there. Instead of telling her “off the couch!”, I give her a biscuit and she quiets down. All order has been restored now that she has gone back to doing everything I trained her to do.
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