have a stuffed, fleece alligator in my right hand, and am shaking it at the growling creature stalking my feet. Neither my husband nor I have had a full night’s sleep in a week.
It was completely our fault and we knew it. We bought into the dream, refinancing our patience and sanity to do it. When we spotted the puppy in a wet cage at the pound, she was soaked, crying, and shaking. As she licked our fingers through the wire, her coat dripping and matted, we knew we had to save her and take her home. After she had been spayed the next day, we went to retrieve her, and were presented with a sweet, lolling puppy and the words “Here’s your dog. Don’t wash her for ten days.”
“This is a good dog,” my husband said as we watched her sleep that night in her newly prepared wicker bed. We both marveled at how lucky we were to have such a calm, well-dispositioned puppy.
The next morning, however, my husband frantically woke me up. “I think there’s something wrong with that dog,” he said. “She’s showing symptoms I saw in
Old Yeller.
She keeps biting me and growling, I’m about to name her ‘Foamy’ and take her out to the barn to put her down.”
“That’s okay,” I said, getting out of bed. “She’s just coming around, getting used to us. All puppies bite and play.”
But when we entered the living room, it looked like a blizzard had struck. “This wasn’t here a minute ago,” my husband said, picking up a torn, shredded piece of toilet paper from the floor.
“It’s my fault,” I admitted. “I shouldn’t have left the roll on the coffee table.”
“Did you leave the Tootsie Rolls from Halloween out, too?” he asked, lifting up his foot, displaying the chocolate prize that had lodged between his toes.
“Do you want me to say yes,” I said slowly, “or tell you the truth that we didn’t have any left?”
That was when we realized that the puppy wasn’t GOOD when we brought her home, she was just SEDATED.
The commercials for Puppy Chow don’t show this part of dog babyhood on TV, I learned over the next couple of days. They don’t show that after spending forty bucks on puppy toys, her favorite playthings will actually consist of an empty toilet paper roll and a plastic tampon applicator she wrestled out of the box. They don’t show the puppy lunging for my ears like Mike Tyson, or her miraculously producing two sounds at the same time, a growl and a primal scream, like a Tibetan monk. They don’t show the already existing pets in the house ducking for cover under beds, in closets, and behind bathtubs, fearful that their private parts will be mutilated by puppy teeth, the only part of them she can reach. They don’t show that new puppy parents should always wear hiking boots, or face the wrath of those same teeth gnawing at their ankles like a paw stuck in a trap. They don’t show that she will try to claw her way to freedom via your recently refinished wood floors, or that you will smell doody everywhere, but won’t find it until it’s attached to you. They don’t show that she doesn’t even like Puppy Chow, and prefers to fish her meals out of the deposits left in the kitty box.
I think that someone should have the responsibility of telling you this before you get a new puppy, because people forget. It’s been eleven years since the last time I brought a fuzzy creature home, the same creature who is now a graying, chunky old lady that looks at me from behind the pillows on the couch with disgust out of her one good eye.
“How could you have been so stupid?” she seems to be saying to me. “I thought you guys were being ‘careful.’ I don’t know how this happened. I sleep at the foot of the bed and I’m with you ALL THE TIME. Now I’ve got this dog that wants to nurse on me, and I’m seventy-seven years old! Look at you, you’ve got a smashed Tootsie Roll stuck to your shoe.”
The cat’s sentiments were easily as hostile. “I hate you more now than I did
It was completely our fault and we knew it. We bought into the dream, refinancing our patience and sanity to do it. When we spotted the puppy in a wet cage at the pound, she was soaked, crying, and shaking. As she licked our fingers through the wire, her coat dripping and matted, we knew we had to save her and take her home. After she had been spayed the next day, we went to retrieve her, and were presented with a sweet, lolling puppy and the words “Here’s your dog. Don’t wash her for ten days.”
“This is a good dog,” my husband said as we watched her sleep that night in her newly prepared wicker bed. We both marveled at how lucky we were to have such a calm, well-dispositioned puppy.
The next morning, however, my husband frantically woke me up. “I think there’s something wrong with that dog,” he said. “She’s showing symptoms I saw in
Old Yeller.
She keeps biting me and growling, I’m about to name her ‘Foamy’ and take her out to the barn to put her down.”
“That’s okay,” I said, getting out of bed. “She’s just coming around, getting used to us. All puppies bite and play.”
But when we entered the living room, it looked like a blizzard had struck. “This wasn’t here a minute ago,” my husband said, picking up a torn, shredded piece of toilet paper from the floor.
“It’s my fault,” I admitted. “I shouldn’t have left the roll on the coffee table.”
“Did you leave the Tootsie Rolls from Halloween out, too?” he asked, lifting up his foot, displaying the chocolate prize that had lodged between his toes.
“Do you want me to say yes,” I said slowly, “or tell you the truth that we didn’t have any left?”
That was when we realized that the puppy wasn’t GOOD when we brought her home, she was just SEDATED.
The commercials for Puppy Chow don’t show this part of dog babyhood on TV, I learned over the next couple of days. They don’t show that after spending forty bucks on puppy toys, her favorite playthings will actually consist of an empty toilet paper roll and a plastic tampon applicator she wrestled out of the box. They don’t show the puppy lunging for my ears like Mike Tyson, or her miraculously producing two sounds at the same time, a growl and a primal scream, like a Tibetan monk. They don’t show the already existing pets in the house ducking for cover under beds, in closets, and behind bathtubs, fearful that their private parts will be mutilated by puppy teeth, the only part of them she can reach. They don’t show that new puppy parents should always wear hiking boots, or face the wrath of those same teeth gnawing at their ankles like a paw stuck in a trap. They don’t show that she will try to claw her way to freedom via your recently refinished wood floors, or that you will smell doody everywhere, but won’t find it until it’s attached to you. They don’t show that she doesn’t even like Puppy Chow, and prefers to fish her meals out of the deposits left in the kitty box.
I think that someone should have the responsibility of telling you this before you get a new puppy, because people forget. It’s been eleven years since the last time I brought a fuzzy creature home, the same creature who is now a graying, chunky old lady that looks at me from behind the pillows on the couch with disgust out of her one good eye.
“How could you have been so stupid?” she seems to be saying to me. “I thought you guys were being ‘careful.’ I don’t know how this happened. I sleep at the foot of the bed and I’m with you ALL THE TIME. Now I’ve got this dog that wants to nurse on me, and I’m seventy-seven years old! Look at you, you’ve got a smashed Tootsie Roll stuck to your shoe.”
The cat’s sentiments were easily as hostile. “I hate you more now than I did
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