Last night was one of those nights: my partner
was snoring, the coyotes were prowling, and our dogs were ready to abandon
their home and join them. Well, let me qualify that. Griffy sat on the back
porch for the next hour, trying to commune with his charming bark;
whereas Chebbi, fraidy-cat, just paced back and forth in the house. I want to go out; I can’t go out; I should go
out; I dare not go out, his pacing seemed to say. Because we are bad parents
and have not yet broken him of the habit of sleeping on our bed (hold your tweets
and emails, I am already drenched in shame), he was doing most of his pacing on the end of our bed. Then there was the nylabone
he found to chew on, which was made out of the most indestructible material
ever invented and produced the loudest gnawing sounds imaginable.
As I was lying there enjoying the blissful
cacophony, I thought I heard, underneath all the clatter, a small squeaking sound. Great, Shadow Mouse had returned. But no it
wasn’t Shadow Mouse, or a mouse at all; the squeaky sound, which became more of a whistling sound, was in fact Phyll snoring. Weird. It turned out she had inhaled the
corner of her pillow, and the pillowcase was actually flappity-flapping with
every exhalation. As I gently tugged the
pillowcase free, I felt like one of those old magicians pulling scarf after scarf from his sleeve.
Once I cleared her passageways and she was
officially pillow-free, her snoring returned to the low drone I know and love
so well. At this point, Chebbi got off the bed and headed to the back door, indicating he wanted to join Griffy. As I walked towards
him, still in a very cheerful Doctor Doolittlely state of mind, I glanced at
the couch in the living room, and thought I might as well get some blankets out
and curl up there for the night, because the dogs were howling, Phyll had
launched into a coughing fit, and this might be the only oasis I was going to
find.
I made a little nest of sorts and tucked
myself into what I must say is a pretty comfy couch. Sure I had to share it with Xena, who nestled
her cat self right beside me; yes, I had to endure Chebbi coming to stick
his doggy snout into my face; and of course my dreams were strange and
unsettling, and when I woke at 5 a.m. I didn’t feel completely rested. Still, it beat lying beside my slumbering partner (really, I was coughing a lot?) or
levitating above the bed in a heightened state of irritation.
When I recounted my night of torment to a friend
at work, she suggested I use something to sedate the dogs, and I reminded
her of the last time she had given me that advice. We had just gotten Chebbi,
at six months of age, when his first owners gave him away. Imagine if your family gave you away; I mean
really gave you away, not just simply ignored you through your teenage
years. Well, Chebbi was a bit of a wreck
as a result, so the first weekend with him was rough. Now it also happened that the first weekend
we had him was also Toronto Pride, but I cavalierly told Phyll to go to Pride, because I would be fine. Chebbi was pretty
agitated throughout the day, so in the evening I took my friend’s advice and
gave him some Gravol then waited for him to sleep the sleep of the dead. Not so much.
Instead he seemed even more awake, and kept clamouring to go out. I let him out, again and again, but at some point in the middle of the
night, I finally fell asleep. I had a
faint sense of Chebbi moving around, but by the time I awoke, the reason for his
agitation was cooling in a heap on the kitchen floor. Surely he would be okay now, though, so after
scrubbing the kitchen floor, I fed him, took him out for a final bathroom break and then headed out for my hour long run.
Arriving home, I found the kitchen floor still spotless. Feeling victorious--I got my run in; what had
Phyll been so worried about?--I went into the bedroom to discover a horrifying
mixture of poo and vomit on the rug at Phyll’s side of the bed. Cue frenzied music and cut to me dragging the rug
into bathroom and frantically tipping the disgusting mess into the toilet, then
hauling the rug out to the pool deck where I flopped it over the fence in
order to hose it down. And of course the whole time, I was accompanied by
Chebbi wiggling anxiously, wondering what he had done.
It couldn’t get worse, right? I had the smell of vomit and poo in my
nostrils; I was stuck with this neurotic dog, and now I had to blast the rug with
water until that most inglorious stain was gone. Chebbi stood close behind me, too close, and
with the first spurt of the hose, he leapt back in terror, and fell into the
pool. Okay, don’t panic; it’s just a new
pool liner, with a puppy clawing madly at edge of pool. I threw the hose down, still on, and it snaked
around crazily as I hauled Chebbi out of the pool.
And then Phyll called to tell me how fabulous
Pride was, and to see how I was doing.
How was I doing? Well I had
drugged our new puppy and caused him to poo and vomit all over our lovely
house, so I guess I was doing well, wasn’t I?
Except of course I couldn’t tell her I had drugged our dog, or left him
for an hour while I completed my run, so I said I was fine, just fine.
No, my friends, I will not be medicating the
dogs tonight, though I might take a
little Gravol, and then Misery and I can listen to a podcast, perhaps on the
art of living well or the power of positive thinking, and enjoy a nightcap of
self-indulgence with a splash of woe is me.
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