The Dog

This is the requisite quarterly post about The Dog in the house. He's a very unique animal that seems to like me even though I can't really pet, feed, sleep near or otherwise really engage with him due to obvious immunity issues. Maybe he just likes my hands-off company. Or maybe if he had a blog he'd be constantly posting about suffering through months of hanging around The Totally Undemonstrative Lady Who Will Not Leave The Damn House. I think it could go either way with me and Cliff, but I like to think it's the former, that I give him nothing but I also require of him nothing, thereby creating a type of Apathy Symbiosis glorious to both man and beast. If he wants pats and love and hugs and treats, he knows where to go. If he wants to sit in peace and quiet in my general vicinity and be chatted with now and again to the tune of "Do you want to go outside, Buddy?" or "Dude! Stop farting! What the hell are they feeding you?!!" then he knows where I am.

Perhaps Cliff is as curious about our status as I am. Whenever I've gone on dog walks with the Master and Mistress of the House, he poops in specific convenient areas, obeys all traffic laws and generally just does his thing happily. When I get the idea to walk him, he decides to test me like I'm a substitute teacher. We're walking along minding our own business when he ambles onto a lawn and starts doing that doggie squat that tells you another kind of "business" is on the way. So I end up desperately pulling him off the lawn and praying he craps somewhere appropriate. And easy to find, since any poop rendered involves a phone call to someone non-immune suppressed to come pick it up. But in the meantime I have to leave it there and keep him moving. So I call and give directions like it's buried freakin' treasure: "Smith Road, about three quarters of the way up, on the little grassy knoll by the roadway, it's kinda greenish brown and big. Can't miss it. See you in 20." But it's like the dog knows I'm an amateur. He would never attempt to crap on someone's lawn with his real dog walkers, but with me it's a neverending quest to find the most inappropriate location on which to deposit some doo. I do have to give Cliff credit, though, because one of the places he chose to do a lightning fast squat that I noticed too late was right in front of a house containing what seems like 9 of those little yappy Pekinese who bark night and day. They were all at the big picture window freaking out in the usual small dog manner, like, "Why are you there?! Who are you?! Don't you know we OWN you?! We're princesses! You disgust me, you common creatures!" Cliff-- I'm not exaggerating--looked at the window with an almost unmistakable canine satisfaction--as he did the biggest crap I've ever seen next to their tree. When he was done, he didn't even kick the dirt. I was appalled. But also impressed. I think I actually said out loud, "Oh SNAP!" Because you have to give a boy dog credit for some seriously funny bitchery.