December 07, 2004
No, No! Bad Dog!
Yesterday, I arrived home from work to be greeted by a very strange sight: the complete lack of wiggling-jumping-up-and-down dog.
My first thought -- "Oh fuck. She'd better be dead or have the burglar cornered."
Because the only other option was that something had been chewed.
Now, Daisy doesn't have many bad habits. She doesn't beg at the table. She doesn't get up on the furniture. She doesn't run away. She doesn't drunk dial. She does, however, enjoy chewing up paper and ramming her nose into everyone's crotch without even a "How's it going?" or a romantic dinner date.
It may be just that she's inherently a darn good dog. Or it could be that she fears me the way Michael Jackson fears subpoenas. I found her wedged into the corner by the back door, ears down, shoulders hunched, looking like she'd just eaten the sofa.
So I walked around the house and quickly found the Christmas present she had halfway unwrapped. I can't tell you what it was, cuz it's for Little Sister, and she reads this, but it wasn't food, so I don't know what provoked her to unwrap it.
I picked up the scraps of paper, held them in front of her face and said in my Scary Mommy voice, "What is this? I spent hours of my life wrapping those damn presents, and now I have to rewrap!"
Shuh. Like I'm not just gonna tape some other wrapping paper over the hole. But she bought it and pressed herself flat to the floor, trying to melt through the linoleum into the basement and thus escape Scary Mommy. God, she looked like I'd just beaten her, and I didn't even raise my hand!
Naturally, I totally started laughing at her and forgave her. And she crawled forward and licked m chin in apology. Really, she's so pathetic. It's embarrassing.
Later, R and PJ came by to bring me a trifle dish and some allergy pills that can only be found at CostCo. They brought their two dogs, Karma the Golden Retriever and Zoe the Rottweiler, and I told them about Daisy's melodrama.
PJ said she had a similar experience with Karma yesterday. She got home from work, and Zoe was the only one who greeted her at the door. And in the kitchen was the reason: the garbage had been invaded.
"Which really was our fault for leaving garbage from Italian beef and hamburger and fries in there." PJ and her dogs are soooooooo codependent.
Anyhoo, she found Karma in the farthest corner of the house from the kitchen as was possible, grabbed her by the collar and started dragging. Karma splayed out her legs as far as they'd go, trying desperately to get a purchase on the floor. But to no avail. She got the scolding of a lifetime just as R was walking in the door.
He was all like, "Why are you yelling at Karma? It was probably Zoe!"
To which I took great offense. You see, Zoe was MY dog originally, but after my divorce, I couldn't keep her, so they agreed to take her. She has a great life -- I want to be reincarnated as one of R and PJ's dogs -- but I enjoy playing the protective "birth mother" and condemning him for treating her like the red-headed stepchild. We all have our hobbies.
But PJ defended her, "No, it was the kitchen garbage. Zoe only likes the bathroom garbage because that has the feminine products."
Ewwwww.