ZOMG I have a dog

Um, world?  Sometimes I do things.  Impulsive things.  Things I not only do not think about, but things that I do not WANT to think about, and yesterday that thing was to go to the local pound and bring home a 30 pound dog.

Why do I do this to myself?  It’s hard to say.  A deathwish?  Intense masochism?  Psychosis?  I’m sure Marti could affirm either or all of those, particularly since I did not mention the dog to him until he got home and saw us walking home from the park, dog in tow.

In my defense, he always told me that if I wanted a dog, that I should get one without telling him.  That he should just come home and have the dog be there.  Implicit in this is his total lack of desire to take care of a dog, any dog, or any animal period.  Let’s just say that we were lucky half the fish lived through the summer.

I, on the other hand, already have two children, four fish, three snails and a cat to care for.  Why did I need a dog?  Osito the cat is certainly upset, and I can’t say much for the sleep I got last night, what with Maya snuffling and the dog trying to crawl into bed with Ben at 2 a.m.  But for some reason, I need a dog.  My messy house will only get messier, and all that money I’ve been working toward shaving off the food budget each month will likely go to dog food, but still, I just need a dog.  I haven’t had a dog since my childhood dog died in 2002 — Opee had lived to the ripe old age (and I mean ripe!) of 17 years old.  For a Cocker Spaniel, that’s the equivalent of really freaking old in dog years.  I always considered myself sort of a cat person, except that I loved Opee desperately and even had my senior pictures taken with him (earning me a lot of jeers in high school).

A few days ago I picked up the book, Marley and Me — Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog, and after sobbing through the end (spoiler alert: the dog dies.  Of course the dog dies!  Dogs don’t live forever!) I decided I wanted a dog.  “Missy,” I told myself sternly, “You just read a very emotional book about dogs.  You should not go looking for a dog for a few days.  Let yourself calm down and be reasonable first.”  I heartily agreed with myself.

Two hours later I was in the Pima County Animal Center getting licked through the chain-link door by a beautiful, 2-year-old Australian shepherd/labrador mix.  I asked the tech to open the door so I could see the dog, and she came back with keys, cooing, “Oh yes, girl, you get to go home, girl, who’s a pretty girl, now…”  I interrupted her.  “We just want to see her.  We haven’t decided yet whether we’re going to take her.”  The tech gave me a look that withered me to a pile of dust on the floor.  “I see,” she said curtly.  “Well, step on in, we don’t want to take her out of her cage prematurely, now, do we?”  I did, feeling like dirt to the negative 20th.  Thirty minutes and $52.00 later (half off dog adoptions!) I was dragging my new dog Saffron out the door.

This morning I woke up in a complete panic.  “I have a dog,” I told myself.  “Well, she’s not that big.  She’s a medium-sized dog.”  Just then, Saffron came bounding in (Marti is insisting we should rename her “Steak”) and jumped into bed with me.  At this point I realized that she had grown in the night, from a medium-sized dog that seemed small compared to the Malemute at the park, to a giant dog, snuffling and shedding on my pillow.  Later I found where she had pooped in Ben’s room — so much for the assurance she was already potty trained.  As I cleaned it up, I thought about just taking her back — would that be so bad?  I had acted impulsively, without discussing consequences or even thinking about them.  But, as I looked outside, where Saffron had been chucked after being scolded for her accident, I saw her running up and down the driveway, “helping” Maya ride her little push tricycle.  She saw me looking and came running up, nose wet, tail wagging like mad. And I knew, impulsive or not, I was in for the long haul.

God help me.

Tags: dogs, impulse shopping, kids