How I Live With Four Bad Dogs
I guess it’s official. I am an empty nester.
With my youngest off to college and my oldest moving back out as a pandemic refugee from Manhattan, I find myself reflecting on what I call my three stages of motherhood.
SInce my two daughters are nine years apart, my three very distinct stages were nine years of Melissa alone, nine years of Melissa and Becca here together, and my last nine years of Becca alone.
That adds up to a 27 year career as an at home mom.
Yes, I have taken many steps in the last weeks to enjoy some newly found independence. I had lunch with my bestie, scheduled some travel, and went away for a spa weekend. It is odd to not hear kids’ voices in my house, but it is not exactly peaceful.
You see, I am a glutton for punishment.
I find that I am now knee deep in stage four of my motherhood.
I am still an at home mom, but now to four bad dogs.
Now they aren’t truly bad, mind you, in any evil way, just determinedly naughty. I can’t seem to get a handle on it and I don’t seem to take proper responsibility for their bad behavior. It’s like that meme that went around about spoiled children. I didn’t do it, some invisible witch did it.
Wasn’t me…
So let me break down this bad dog household one pup at a time.
First, there is Edgar the Pug.
He will be seven this fall. He is an obsessive barker at squirrels and neighborhood walkers. He takes this skill further by watching TV and barking at the dogs and animals in commercials. He even knows the commercial jingle that precedes their appearance, comes to attention, and launches at the TV. He then races around to the hall behind the TV to see if that dog is back there. He has done this several thousand times. It’s maddening.
He pees on my patio and is an official member of the boxwood killers club.
He hates to go out in the rain and will hide and poop somewhere inside that day.
Despite his grumpy demeanor, he is quite needy. He loves when family and friends reunite. He greets them by throwing his head back and letting out a deeply felt, primal howl to welcome anyone back to the pack. He also does this when you sing to him.
He is a supreme cuddler. He is all muscle and has a body like a very strong piglet. He insists on sitting extremely close to you on the couch or in your chair. If you try to move him when your legs grow numb, he resists and re-cuddles a quarter of an inch away from his previous position. He allows no space. We have accepted this.
Then there is Sassy, our four year old curly, whirly, all girlie Cavalier King Charles.
She is, in our family’s biased opinion, the prettiest cavvy we have ever seen.
Her face is sweet and petite, not too scrunched up, with a perfect little Jackie Kennedy button nose.
Her tail always wags for no good reason when she walks from one room to the next. She blinks her wet brown eyes at you and is a total princess.
Generous with kisses, she loves to get primped and dressed up in her sweaters.
She is darling. She is pretty and she knows it. These adorable attributes allow her to get away with murder.
Take her on a walk and she barks like a crazed lunatic at any poor passing dog. It’s embarrassing.
She loves to roll dirty. When you let her out back she will look to see if anyone is watching, toss her fluffy ears, and stroll directly through the mucky section of the backyard. She comes in looking like a drowned sewage rat. Her official anti-princess nickname is “Sewage”, as our neighbors can attest. We scream it from the deck when we tire of calling out “Sassy” for her to stop barking and come inside.
When you then have to clean her paws in the laundry room sink, she puts on an innocent victim expression and acts like you are killing her.
Despite her femininity, she is completely fearless. She recently took on a huge great blue heron about to snack on the koi in our pond and promptly barked it into a tree.
Sassy’s happy place is with you, in your lap, all day, all evening, every day. If you need to go to the restroom, you cannot go alone. There is nowhere to hide from her. She will find you.
She likes to poop in the laundry room, even if she has recently been outside and it is good weather.
Yet, when you see her skip and jump outside to joyfully chase a butterfly, you believe in everything good and pure in this world once again.
Benson is our big three year old Newfoundland.
He is mysterious and sensitive with beautiful amber eyes. He is like living with a cross between a black bear and a fluffy lion.
Benson is bossy, selfish and likes his schedule maintained. He repeatedly barks a demanding “buff” for his morning walk. He likes his breakfast served to him in his “house” (his giant crate that takes up a corner of the family room.) He eats lying down. He is picky about his food and often pouts and won’t eat when he feels disappointed about what we sprinkle on top of his kibble.
He loves used tissues and empty toilet paper rolls. You will often find him sticking his head in trash cans to find them.
Benson is a huge baby. He has been petrified of the open patio umbrella since it came out of the stand in a windstorm and hovered magically in the air before crashing in front of the slider door. He was traumatized for days. He is afraid of the mop and bucket when it’s in the kitchen. He is deathly afraid of the tarp-covered riding mower. When frightened, he lets out a scream bark that is not of this earth.
He hoards new toys in his crate and refuses to share. He loves when you toss his soccer ball out in the yard, but don’t expect a fun game of fetch with him. Oh no. After one throw, he takes his ball and walks right past you up the deck stairs, into the house and hides with his ball in his crate.
He suffers from separation anxiety and gets upset when family members leave. He tries to push past you to get to the door before you to go to block your attempt or hope to come with you. We have now learned to strategize our exits. He is learning to be a better man since we added an English setter puppy, Tess, to our family.
When our youngest went away to college this year, Benson slept in the dining room for a week, looking out the window, waiting for her to come home. He wouldn’t come up to go to bed. It was heartbreaking.
When he misbehaves and comes to see you, he lowers his huge head and wants you to kiss his forehead and give him sweet talk. It’s a total “Boog is sorry” moment from the animated movie Open Season. We proceed to turn to mush and forgive him for everything.
Tessie Lynne Nacogdoches Honey Butter Biscuit is our one year old English Setter.
She is a sweet, highly athletic and intelligent bird dog. She lives for birds. She dreams about birds. Birds, birds, birds!
An obnoxiously early riser, she bolts upright with that first little birdy tweet around 4:34 A.M. She pokes you in bed persistently until you get up.
She loves to be alone outside, birdwatching for hours with the breeze blowing her feathery ears.
Independent and happy unto herself, she picks up a tennis ball outside and tosses it around repeatedly. She looks for frogs around the pond and recently rescued a baby bluebird that fell out of the birdhouse. She presented it alive and well without a single feather out of place. After a few hours of daily bird stalking, I catch her lounging luxuriously on my double chaise, snoozing with a Mona Lisa smile.
However, just try to take Tess on a walk. She will drag you right down the street on that leash. I speak from experience. I saw my orthopedic doctor for a shoulder steroid injection in May.
She also has toenails like a velociraptor.
My family calls her strange, I like to think of her as ethereal. When she stands on her back legs for a scratch, she looks like Dobby of Harry Potter fame.
Bird obsessed, we call her “Tessica Obsessica” when she goes into bird stalking mode. She points like a champion on the “glowbirds” that shimmer on our family room wall in the early evening from the sparkle of the setting sun through the blinds.
When she does take a nap, she curls up in her bed like a goose and takes very long, very deep naps with a peaceful, dreamy expression. Sitting next to her when she sleeps is very emotionally comforting.
Well, there you have it. Those are my four canine kids.
Often I feel frustrated and tied down with this situation. I guess the upside is my girls and guests can’t wait to be home and hang out with our four bad dogs. When I complain and question my own choices about having them, my daughters testify now that they are out in the world that these four little fur babies have more developed personalities than normal dogs.
How did I get here? I think it is because I always wanted to have a lot of children, and I have raised all of our dogs like they are human babies. Right or wrong, it is what I did. I think I took a cue from Rene Russo’s character in the movie “Buddy” where she raised that baby gorilla, dressed it in clothes and took it around town. She too had to learn the consequences of such a parental philosophy when it comes to animals.
I have come to the point where I don’t think they will improve their behavior much. So what am I going to do stuck here with these four bad dogs?. What do we all do when we examine the choices we have made in our lives? Well, that’s an easy one. We rationalize and make up an explanation that serves ourselves.
Here’s mine. I just love dogs and am a total sucker.
So this is what I am going to do. I will take total, glorious credit when they are adorable , and blame them and others entirely when they are bad.
In short, I give up. Works for me!
Edgar, Sassy, Benson and Tessie Lynne, I love you SO MUCH! Thanks for making this stage of motherhood so rich and magical. From now on I will try not to yell but there are no guarantees. We are all in this together.
In the hunt,
Pattie Jo
