Bad Morning Dogs

A favorite story - not a favorite event but a funny story - from Marley's younger days - he was 7 and able to get where he wanted to go. Billie was scary young - less than 2.

(September 2003) Last week Craig took the dogs to the vet for their shots (not Craig's usual job - but he was working nights that week and had his days free) and when the vet told him that we need to reduce Marley's food, Craig had a "Eureka!" moment - now that a male authority figure was saying the same thing I have been telling Craig for years, Craig suddenly heard the truth of it.

Since then Marley has been on very slim rations since Craig and I are actually, finally in agreement about how much food to measure in his dish. Marley is totally PO'd by our united front and glares at me every time I eat in front of him (Craig only eats one meal a day so there is less potential for harassment), sending me not-so-subliminal messages that I could lose a few pounds myself, breakfast bagels are more carbs than I need, etc.

I'm on antibiotics and this morning I cut my breakfast bagel sandwich in half so I could have part at home with my vitamins and the other half when I got to work, with my morning pill. I wrapped up the remaining half and stuck it down inside my carrier bag, then went to take a 10-minute bath.

Oh, how disturbing it is to hear the sound of ripping & tearing when one emerges from the bathroom...yet I have been met with this sound more times than I care to remember.

Here is the scenario of those 10 minutes, as best I can recreate it: in pursuit of the sandwich he smelled, Marley stood up on his hind legs and knocked the carrier bag down from a chair. He couldn't unfasten the bag clips so he worked at widening the opening between the front clips.

The first item he pulled through the opening was not the sandwich, but a package of all-natural feminine hygiene products that I had just bought at Whole Foods Market. He tossed that aside (in manly-dog disgust, I am sure) and dug further for the sandwich.

Marley takes the lead role in this kind of endeavor but Billie was hovering closely at his side. As soon as she saw the bag of fluffy feminine items, she excitedly realized their potential - all-natural means all-cotton, which means...fluffy stuffing! (She destroyed her last remaining soft toy last week and has been eyeing our sofa cushions as potential replacements.)

Within the short time they were unsupervised, Billie shredded several dollars worth of feminine products, lots of organic cotton fuzz became embedded in the nylon fibers of my black carrier bag, and Marley ate not just the sandwich (I'm sure that was a 2- second job) but most of the waxed paper it was wrapped in.

I yelled & screamed at the dogs and terrorized them with the vacuum cleaner - no true remorse, of course, but they seemed a bit sad that they wouldn't get their usual morning kisses & hugs goodbye.

I think I'm most upset that I have to go back to Whole Foods for replacements since that store annoys me - I always end up in line in front of someone buying organic Oreos for their bratty kids who are banging their cart into me, the counter, and the organic candy & throat lozenge rack. (Clearly organic food is not helping those kids and they might as well get Nabisco.)

A search for big-picture meaning brings me to the thought that most of this mess can be blamed on Craig - when he bought dog food yesterday I asked him to get more stuffed dog toys for Billie to chew up, but he pretended I was joking.

I still haven't convinced him that the stuffed tigers, etc. that Billie loves so much (and consumes so expensively) must be regarded in an old-time, pagan way - as small-animal sacrifices thrown into the jaws of the evil beast so that the beast doesn't ruin our crops (or eat holes in our sofa).