Why I Am Not a Dogwalker

I used to think I was a dog person. That is until I came into bed tonight - you know, my marriage bed, my sacred space, the fluffy thing into which I plop after a long day of asking the big questions - and there was a dog lying in my spot, growling at me like I was an intruder.

Granted, it's not my dog. It's Josie, Jessie's parent's dog, a Cocker Spaniel/Poodle half-breed with all the snootiness of a poodle and the stubbornness of a spaniel. Josie is the perfect example of how you can drive just about any living thing crazy by picking on it. She's got a hair-trigger, can bite you while wagging her tail, and is OCD about... well... everything.

And she was sitting in my bed, snarling, guarding a sleeping Jess from, you guessed it, me.

We're dogsitting this week while Jess' parents galavant around the West Coast. We didn't exactly volunteer to dog-sit, either. The dog-thing arrived with Tooch this past Thursday when she came down for one of her interviews, and I couldn't convince her to take it back (she already has a dog). I quickly came to realize that Jess saw a golden opportunity to test out my parenting capabilities which, safe to say, are in shoddy disrepair and I like it that way, thank you very much. I'm at a stage in my life when I don't want any other living thing counting on me save for me. Myself. Moi. And maybe my wife, when she's good. We've killed all our plants save for the bamboo, and even that is yellowed at the edges. God help any creature who wanders into our apartment - we've got so many poisonous baited traps set to kill any living thing that enters this Fortress of Doom, it's ridiculous. I haven't seen a spider in 8 months. Flies die a quick and painful death between the thunderclap of fists. And God help the cockroaches if they so much as stop to look in our window on their way down the street. Just keep walking, buddy. [cocks shotgun]

And then here comes this dog. And she needs walked. And pet. And have her poop picked up in plastic bags. And she stares at you when you eat. And she barks at goddamn everything.

Which was fine. I could deal with it. I'm a big boy, I can handle things that are not entirely fun and/or easy. Until she was lying in my bed, in my spot, on my pillows, next to my wife, snarling at me at 12:30 in the morning like I was the stranger, like I had intruded into her life. She barked, and woke up Jess, and the stream of invective I started shooting at this mutt would have made a microphone blush. The dog and I got into a growling fight (I do a wicked dog impression), and Jess awoke furious at me and then she shoved the dog off the bed. It snarled again at me, and I growled back, pushed it outside the bedroom, threw its fluffy bed at it, and slammed the door.

So. Yes. I used to think I was a dog person. Maybe when it's my dog, it'll be different, you know? But right now, I wish this mutt would go the way of the potted plants.

-Martin