Her life is not without inconsistencies. On one hand, she’ll push back if you try to push her off your side of the bed. She’ll snap at you if you treat her poorly, or if you withhold food from her. She’s been getting heavier, and while I may abide a lot of things I will absolutely not abide weight gain. If anyone is going to be gaining weight around here, it had better be me. She’s sweet at times, cuddly even, when we’re watching television late at night. Often, I have to carry her to bed, which is not particularly strange.
But she eats dog food, and laps water without much grace. She’ll roll around in questionable piles of questionable things, and then run to the door when I get home, as if. She mothers the children nicely, waking them in the morning for school and following suit with all sorts of yelling if they disobey. She’s not great at detecting subtle disobedience, but she’s pretty good at discerning blatant disobedience, especially if it involves stomping of feet, yelling, crying, too. She’s a good friend, that Molly. And it was four years ago this fall that I introduced her to my family, and to this audience.
I find it nauseating when other people talk about their dogs. It’s almost as bad as listening to people drone on about how their children would get great grades, if only the teachers knew how to connect with them. And because both are nauseating, I don’t tell you about how smart my children are, or how great my daughter is at swimming (the best), or how impressive my son is at basketball (tops!), but I will tell you now about a massive, literally life changing mistake that I recently made.
Molly is a good dog. I mentioned above that she’s mostly dog, but she’s successfully blurred the boundaries between dog and man. She’s indeed part of the family, and though non-dog owners do not understand that, it’s a known condition amongst dog people. I, by the way, am not a dog person. I will not seek out dogs to pet or play with or otherwise be near. I do not wish to have my house smell of dog, nor do I want things covered in dog hair. This is why Molly is a mini golden doodle, capable of much affection but very little mess.
Molly, though I feared she would be, has not proven to be a mistake. Earlier this year, I contemplated adding another dog. I’m not having any more planned children, and I nixed my wife’s desire to have chickens, goats, and various other living things, so I thought long and hard about adding another dog. Sabrina, a nice woman from downstate Illinois, has golden doodles, but she also has various other doodle creations, mixes of some normal dog and various shapes and sizes of doodle. She is a mad scientist, with not one intimidating Frankenstein, but rather generations and generations of genetically modified doodles.
I reached out to her, to reserve a new puppy. My wife wanted a full sized dog, to offset Molly’s smallish nature. I thought about it, and when I was in a weak moment of thinking myself into accommodating another dog, I thought only of the warm scene that finds two dogs sleeping near a winter fire. Like children, I like them best when they’re either outside running around, or sleeping. There is little room for the in-between.
I asked clients about the idea of two dogs, and most said it was a bad idea. After some thinking myself into the idea, I thought myself out of it, and on the day that I was to drive to Bourbanais to meet with Sabrina and pick my new, large doodle, I bailed. I felt guilty, but doodle puppies should be considered currency, as no one with a thousand dollars in their pocket can refuse such a darling freak of nature.
I made the mistake of telling my wife about this attempted dog purchase, because I thought she might be happy with me for both considering her idea, and then being smart enough to nix it. The pleas began anew, and when I told her that it was up to her, the worst possible outcome was in the offing. By early August, we had a new dog. This one a labradoodle, a full sized, giant creature that we named Hopper. Not because he hopped a lot, but because when I fly fish in the summer my preferred fly of choice is a hopper pattern, and with the addition of a new dog I would find myself fishing, often.
It has been four months since we added Hopper to the fold. He is large and dumb, disobedient and bold. He is everything I figured he would be. He is too excitable, and perhaps he took to his name better than I thought, as he tends to jump on anything and everything, small children, elderly women, passing cars. He’s a jumper. But he’s also a sweet dog who looks great in front of a wood fire, so I suppose not all is lost.