Dog Days

I am a die-hard dog lover, as explained in this previous post about the Tobster. They’re fun, they keep you active and engaged, give the love they get and teach that with responsibility comes reward. Dog owners are proven to have lower blood pressure and cholesterol, less instances of depression, higher survival rates and quicker recovery from illness and longer lives than people without pets. I plan to let my kids each get a dog when they turn ten that they will take care of, and can think of no better way to teach them to become responsible, accountable young adults.

BUT, this week has taught me that I am nowhere close to being a parent or multiple dog owner. In an endeavor to test out what having more than one dog is like, I volunteered to watch my boyfriends dog for the ten days he was away on a bike trip in Montana pretending to be James Dean. You may remember Duke from the short post I did about him a while ago. He is still the collar-tugging, acrobatic master he was when he was little, though he’s given up tail gnawing, as it proved hazardous to his health. He’s instead moved on to more apropos activities, such as wrestling, boxing, and recently discovered what I like to call the “Down dog, hump dog” as well as the “reverse mount employing head lock” and the “old fashioned”.

Thus far, I’ve had destroyed note pads, bath mats, magazines, garbage bags, throw pillows, slobbered bedspreads and chewed-to-a-mangled-mess Ray Bans. This is not to mention the dirtying of every pair of pants I’ve worn thus far, as his boxer jowels are impressively stocked with the awful goop-slime of his special, strangely elastic brand that he shmears on every surface as good as my Jewish friends do on a bagel. Needless to say, my dry cleaners are having a very lucrative week.

Walking is a nightmare. Toby, while much better than he used to be, is still a leash tugger, while duke likes to employ the fervent yank, effectively skinning my arm while nearly dislocating my shoulder. Should they decide to scamper (I say this as if they aren’t 85 and 65 pounds of muscle, respectively) in complete opposite directions for that “perfect pee spot” the effect on me is somewhat like a medieval torture device. This is all to the great amusement of fellow pedestrians.

Meals leave me feeling like Lebron James on the defense, boxing Toby out from intercepting Duke’s food, and later boxing them both out from my supper.

Sleep, or the space to do so, is quite hard to come by…real estate on my bed is about as coveted as a classic six facing the park. I’ve found myself fetal, or with one dog taking up the foot of the bed while the other is between my calves, and have even woken up sleeping entirely parallel to my headboard. My bum has been thought to be an acceptable pillow, and pillows thought to be acceptable slobber wipes. Should I kick them off, they jump back up within 10 minutes, should I kick them out, they cry and wrestle and growl.

I’m on day 7 of 11, and if Chris couldn’t tell from my inability to muster excitement for hearing from him on the cell-service-free, wild roads of the North West, I’m knackered. The warm reception he is hoping for upon his return might be replaced with a warm reception from Duke, while I pour myself a glass of red, belt the chorus of Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin” and point him in the diection of the vacuum.