thebeckybug

I’ve also got this other dog, Shade. He’s a rescue pup and was so friendly (read: overexcited) to me the first day we met (and everafter amen.) When I walked up to his little enclosure in front of the petsmart, he immediately flung his body sideways at me against the little fenced barrier in order to show me his underbelly. As if to say: “I am yours, you beautiful dog-deserving woman! You look like you need a bundle of love and energy like me. See my belly, see, I am sweet and gentle, too!” We locked eyes and never looked back.

Except he’s not sweet nor ever gentle. This dog. He has claws. And oh, how those claws do come out. Maybe he thinks he can reach out to you and grab your arm with dainty little puppy fingers. Maybe he thinks his paws say “Hello sweet owner of mine. You give me everything I live for. Look at me and how cute I am, can I just ask you to pet my head, just this once? Then I promise I’ll lay down and not ask you again for the next 2 minutes.” Maybe he just doesn’t realize that he owns claws of mass destruction and instead really says, “I shall reap gardens of strawberry swollen skin with my scythe-like claws of torture” every time he reaches out.

Your dog, what a pretty dog! Your dog, he has no tail! Yes, thank you fellow dog-park goer, I never noticed that before, either. That’s amazing. How can a dog not have a tail and still be a dog, you ask? Will the world ever know?! That is so puzzling and so amazing! But it’s only amazing the first 100 times that it’s pointed out. And fellow dog-park goer, you happen to be the 1,456th person to notice the non-tail on the back of my dog, so forgive me if I don’t respond with equal amazement. Go ask the tootsie roll pop owl. He might have a better answer for you. While you’re there, ask about the butt-beard. I really want to know why there is so much hair growing on this creature’s butt.

Shade, he also barks. He barks if a ladybug lands on a window screen. How dare that ladybug come close to this house of mine. This house of mine, it’s mine! And I shall bark at you, little lady bug. I will bark at you even after you fly away or die on the screen of a heart attack from the outrageous ruckus that is my bark!

But Shade, this dog, he doesn’t bark sometimes, like when in the middle of the night your wine-rack stocked with unopened bottles of wine comes crashing down on the counter, shattering everything it comes in contact with. It will be the sound of the crash that wakes you up, not the barking. Because this crashing of glass all over the kitchen is something very little when compared to the fury that is the ladybug. So thanks Shade, thanks for not going bezerk over the crashing in the kitchen last night. I would have thought it was a burglar, or a ladybug, except that you weren’t barking. And then deeper into the middle of the night, that one time, every night, when the neighbors drove their car into their driveway, thanks for bark.bark.barking! about them. I really needed to know the neighbors came home at 3AM. Thanks for the notice Shade, but can you please just wait and tell me about it in the morning?

Really, though, Shade’s a good dog. There’s something about the excitement that takes over his whole body whenever he sees you looking at him. He gets excited when I roll over in the bed and peek one little eye open at him lying wrapped around my head on the pillow. He gets excited when I step out of the shower. He gets excited when I walk around the house. Heaven forbid I ask him if he wants to go outside. His head does this thing. This thing where it just about totters off his shoulders. First one way, and then the other. Each time he has to hold his breath. It’s like his little joyful brain fills with so many rainbows that it starts radiating out of his eyeballs. Those rainbows, they’re infectious so just pay no mind that I get kooky every time I see that bundle of love and everlasting energy that is the Shade.