Worst Kept Secrets

Let me tell you about my dog.

A couple of months ago, I got hit with Dog Fever, and BAD. I’d spent the bulk of my life being completely comfortable with my identity as a Cat Person, but something clicked over in my system with a degree of intensity that I can only compare to my fearful imagining of my biological clock suddenly going off and demanding offspring.

[further: I'm really afraid of this. I hear so much about that stupid biological clock, and the way it gets described sounds vaguely like turning into a werewolf - one day you're your normal twenty-something self eating ice cream for breakfast, thinking of money mostly in terms of how many cheeseburgers and Apple products it can eventually bring you and absent-mindedly planning to apply for a volunteership at the Orangutan Foundation in Borneo, and the next day, YOU MUST BREED. Now, I have friends planning on taking the leap into parenthood, which is all well and good and PLANNED, making it different from what I'm describing here, so I'm not trying to insult anyone - I'm just really hoping that the biological clock business is a myth steeped in gender expectations, because otherwise it's a devastatingly frightening concept to me]

I went a little crazy with it - reading dog books and making lists of names, melting with desire and envy every time I passed a canine on the street, etc. Enter Larry, the bichon frise/poodle mix with a bad leg that Chris fell in love with and that in throes of my dog obsession I was unable to combat with common sense (common sense said that we had three cats and 1.5 jobs between us).

I always thought that I wanted a big wolfy dog, but it turns out that in my heart of hearts I’m actually a lame poodle mutt kind of gal, and I freaking love my dog. His ears do this ridonkulous flutter thing when he walks, he does handstands when he pees, he makes me feel like a god when I get home from work, and he’s the most patient, polite, agreeable little guy I’ve ever met (excepting anything that involves strange dogs on the porch or squirrels). There aren’t any problems with the cats, who I still love more than people, and it was all around a good decision, against unimaginable odds of us making a stressful mistake.

Larry’s name was Lucky, but he got renamed by his rescue foster mom - there’s just nothing particularly lucky-seeming about a starving animated cotton ball with a badly injured leg left untreated for who knows how long who got dumped at the animal shelter and was very nearly euthanized. Marcia pulled him out from under the needle and got him some vet attention, and now he lives with us and generally makes my life a happy goofy cuddly experience. Marcia, incidentally, also founded Spay Arkansas, and they do good work and would be an excellent beneficiary for any yuletide charitable impulses you may be feeling.

So there’s that - as of now, there are six mammals in my house vying for snacks and cuddles, and we’re doing just fine.