The Yoda Phone Charm
Want to get me a gift I’ll love? This is your answer. I don’t know how I’ve been living without this for so long. It is closely followed by the Bacteria Assassin Ninja Toothbrush Sanitizer:
You never even saw it coming...
Or how about this bark-free device that keeps dogs from barking? (I’m looking at YOU, Daphne the dog!) You can buy this for me too.
Emits a high-pitched sound whenever a dog barks, annoying the dog back.
We are still adjusting to life with Saffron; I thought I had pictures but don’t yet (sorry LeeAnn!). I will take some soon. Marti continues to call her Steak and we are continuing to deal with her behavioral issues but things are coming along slowly; she’s sleeping in the laundry room (better for my furniture) and she is able to approach other dogs without absolute terror (no more watching her cower before a rat terrier). She likes to lay on my feet when I’m at the computer and keep them warm, and I say, if Marti did that, would I need a dog? He still disagrees.
Anyway, I was reading Dooce today and followed her link to a craigslist ad entitled “Hideous, Mean Saggy-Titted Cur” in Austin, Texas.Â
Those are some big nipples...
When my roommate found her on the streets, she was malnourished and skittish and had heart worms. You know, I’ve read more and more stories about pets being abandoned lately because of the economy. I recently got back from a gay wedding in California where one of the grooms had just rescued a Papillon he found starving in a ditch. He was neurotic and defensive for like the first few days, but now a week later he has settled in, and is doing great. And the Papillon’s doing well, too. But this pendulously mammaried cur – Elzora, my roommate calls her, though you might as well be meowing at her, because she doesn’t know the difference – she is not like that. Not. Like. That. At. All. This is not the precious, precocious Papillon someone rescues from a ditch. This is the miserable, ugly bitch (I use the term technically) that you make a little scrunchy-face at while glancing at it askance…before calling fricking Animal Control.
…
If you want to know what she looks like, she’s a dead ringer for the Capitoline Wolf [see above]. Look it up on Wikipedia while the article is still accurate. So Elzora would be great if you had two infants, for example, that you wanted to abandon in the woods only to have them found Western Civilization. Without the two little baby statues beneath her, though, I have to say that the first thing you notice about Mama Dog is: nipples. Obscenely large nipples. We think she was probably used for breeding or something because there’s really no other explanation. I’m not being cruel, I’m just saying. Because there’s one nipple in particular that is really disturbing. The rest you could maybe overlook. But she has this one nipple that hangs really low, and it’s fat, but then it gets really skinny, and then it gets fat again. It’s like it’s just barely hanging on, though it’s not, and evidently there’s nothing ‘wrong’ with it except how it looks. But man, that nipple is unsettling.
Anyway, thankfully Saffron has very normal nipples and we’ve been pee-free for about a week (knock on wood). Oh, and for anyone looking to get rid of a urine smell, might I recommend the product Out!, which I purchased after a long, trying drive out to Walmart in search of shoes for Maya and cleaning products for me. I used an entire half gallon — just dumped it on my carpet — but I am finally smell-free. My carpet is, anyway. 
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.
