About the dog always dies

So I decide for Christmas break I'll pick up a little light reading.

And the commercial for the Marley & Me movie catches my interest, because I sis-love Jennifer Anniston and wish she were my BFF, and although I had resisted reading the book until that very moment, I decide it's exactly what I need to read.

So I buy it.

And as I read it, I realize it's as much the story of a family as of a dog. Luckily the family seems much more functional than the dog, because dude, that dog would have lasted about five minutes in my house. Who has time or patience to deal with a four-legged, tail-whipping, tornado of destruction?

Sorry, I just lied in the previous paragraph, about that five minutes thing.

Because although our dog, Buffy the Wonder Dog, has been gone from us for over 10 years, her memory lingers long -- longer than her smell did in the garage -- and I do her a disservice to say I would not have tolerated a Marley when I did, indeed, tolerate a Buffy, for 14 years. Fourteen loooooonnnnngggg years.

Buffy was a lifelong puppy, a cute and cuddly cockapoo who didn't know a stranger, full of energy 'til her end, tolerant of small children and unfailingly loyal to her family.

In other words, Buffy was hard to control, needed an expensive haircut every four weeks, was useless as a watch dog, asked endlessly to be taken outside, ate everything the kids didn't, and, after sneaking out of the house to roll in any pile of dog poop she could find, came home a happy conquerer, tail wagging.

Buffy developed epilepsy in her first year, which necessitated her being on medication. Which she needed twice a day. Carefully spaced. Without fail. From a prescription. That I needed to get filled. At the drugstore. Every month. For thirteen years. A prescription written in her name. Buffy Dog Dee. If we took a trip, if we just had a long day, if I had a full schedule that made it hard to get to the drugstore ... didn't matter. Buffy's medication had to be given, and/or I had to make one more stop. Which I did. For. Thirteen. Years.

Later in life, Buffy developed another condition that necessitated medication--incontinence. The good news, the pills only had to be given twice a week. The bad news, they were more expensive than the epilepsy meds. The good news, the pills worked pretty well. The bad news, who needs their dog peeing everywhere? Which is why she needed them in the first place.

She also developed a strange skin condition of knotty cysty things on her body, including one on her tail. They didn't hurt, they weren't malignant, they just ... looked like hell. So we had them taken off. Let's just say that one cost ... hundreds. That operation made the haircuts seem reasonable.

So why do people like us keep a poop-rolling, snack-eating, haircut-needing, medically challenged dog?

For one: she was ours. She loved us, so she was worth it.

And the other: she was Tony's little sibling--the one he could boss around, feel bigger than, baby. She was the youngest child's little sister. She cheerfully took the rough-housing, the bossing, the love. And Tony learned how to love someone weaker, littler, and even more ornery than him. 

Worth a few dog-poop baths.

Even eternal puppies get old, and by the time the kids were young teenagers, Buffy was a senior citizen. Her heart grew feeble, as did she, and one fall day it was evident to all that Buffy had done her job as trainer of children. Her long-time vet helped ease her into whatever next world dogs go to--truthfully, he shed more tears than I did.

The years of haircuts, medication and clean-up had rendered me a little less grief-stricken than perhaps I should have been.

Which brings me back to Marley. Who, I should have guessed, dies at the end of the book.

And here comes the difference between Marley's family & me.

It seems the Grogan family had not had enough. Soon after Marley's departure, they adopted a new puppy. Brave, foolish souls.

Me, on the other hand, had had more than enough. Buffy the Wonder Dog did me in forever for dogs. No more dogs for us. Nope. Lesson learned.

Emphasis on dogs there. 

Don't even get me started about the cat(s). 

About what my cat thinks

His name is Sammy, named after Sammy Sosa, because he was originally my daughter's cat, and she was a big Sosa fan in the Cub years. He's a long-haired white cat with green eyes and a fluffy mane and a long tail.
This cat has no claws: he's defenseless. Yet this does not hinder him from stalking, successfully, moles, mice and sadly the occasional bird.
He's very quiet--he only meows when he's been stuck in the house awhile when we're on a trip, or he's been thrown in the basement for bad behavior.
He does purr when petted.
He likes to lay up in the corner of the loft, where he can look down on the livingroom, and pretend he is Simba from The Lion King.
One time Tony's long-gone kitten, Indy, was up there the day she was declawed. In her adolescent excitement she fell through the wooden slates onto the coffee table, almost on Tony's head. She hit her claws and they started to bleed and we had to first aid her awhile before it calmed down. One life down.
Our old cat, Tippy, did not much care for the loft. She tended to find out of the way places to sleep where we couldn't bother her. Of course, she was really a boy--her gender being mistaken by the vet ladies on her first visit, and only discovered by my when she was caught doing the wild thing with a pair of Ang's furry slippers.
However, even after discovering her maleness, we still called her "her" out of lazy habit.
Tippy was a fat, lazy cat herself, who lived a long and luxurious life until succumbing to an oral ailment. Tippy had small use for Sammy, but would condescend to play with him once in a while, when it suited her. They'd chase each other around the downstairs, then wrestle a minute, then Tippy (fat) would sit on Sammy (thin) and it was over.
Sammy thinks he owns the house, he can sleep absolutely anywhere, demands to be fed fresh food three times a day, insists his litter box be spotlessly clean, and lets himself be petted behind the ears when he's in the mood.
I can't tell him any differently.
So, how about you? Who rules the roost on your farm?

About sleeping with the enemy

Okay, most of the time our pets aren't our enemies, but I couldn't resist that header.

Although when your cat wakes you up at a 5 a.m. by repeatedly banging his head against your hand, wanting to be petted, his allegiances can be questioned.

And when he settles on your feet, like a breathing fur carpet, and refuses to budge, making you feel guilty for wanting to move your feet even though they have entirely lost all feeling, and you end up kicking him off, well, that seems like a passive-aggressive kind of attack to me.

And the gift that keeps on giving--that beautiful, long, white fur that everyone exclaims over. What a beautiful cat! they say. What a walking hair-ball! you think. Because the very attribute that makes ole Sammy both stunningly attractive and imminently pet-able, makes him a housekeeping nightmare. (He looks just like this»)

Because the spot he really like to nap on, at the end of my bed ... is the same place I sit to put my shoes on. Consequently, my butt and Sammy end up looking like twins. And I'm the ugly one.

Speaking of butts, friend Beth told the story yesterday of sleeping with their new dog. Who's not supposed to be on the bed at all. But who is getting spoiled big-time by her new people. And who started out the night in her OWN bed on the floor...but who was back on the Posturepedic by 2 a.m...and by wake-up time, was right at pillow level. Only it wasn't her head on the pillow. It was her...tail end. Good morning, family!

Well, that's the tail end of that. What are you thinkin' about our furry bedfellows?

About people with poop bags*

[*Dog-walkers, not people with colostomies.]
They were out in a pack last night, as I took a walk at dusk: the dog-walkers.
Some of them were familiar to me -- the man who walks the dog that looks like Cousin Itt on four legs; the lady with the little terrier; the young woman whose looks as if her dog walks her.
Some, I'd never seen before--two ample ladies who must be related; they had the same oddly stiff walk; they were both dressed rather formally for an evening stroll; they said "hi" to me with the same tight smile.
But only one of them held the object that connected them to the rest of the dog-walked population, yes, indeed, NOT the leash, but rather:
The poop bag.
All those dog-walkers, strolling the neighborhoods, just waiting for the moment their pets pause and sniff the grass, the moment even the coolest canines dread, when they must assume ... the pooping position. What self-respecting dogs looks anything BUT embarrassed during this most vulnerable moment? And what human doesn't just stand and stare, knowing that the next embarrassing moments belongs to them:
The moment the human whips out the poop bag, and attempts the bag-as-a-glove, turn-it-inside-out-and-flip-the-poop-inside, heaven-forbid-the-dog-has-had-indigestion moment. Don't miss. Or squeeze.
The remainder of the walk is spent in relief (the pooping moment having passed) and chagrin: There's no chucking that poop bag until you get back home. [Why don't additions put waste baskets at corners? Just wondering.]
Last admission: I don't miss our former pet, the long-suffering cockapoo, Buffy the Wonder Dog, one bit. A big reason: No desire to ever carry her poop bag around.
Buffy herself would have hated poop bags for a very selfish reason: no poop in the neighborhood to roll around in. Her favorite activity was to escape from the house, tear around the addition, and roll in any old dog poop she could find. Oh, good times, good times.
So, now, what'd you wake up thinkin' about? Cause I hope it was better than poop.