This week I was forced to come to the realization that I
have officially slipped over the edge and have become an insane dog lady. Full
fledge talk to them, dress them up, and treat them as if they are a member of
the family even if they are not even the same species level of crazy.
It all started when I went to the Dillard’s to look for new
office clothes Old Man Myers. My father has graciously allowed him to become
the warm body of the office for the remainder of tax season. This is the nice
way to say that he does the crap work that no one else really wants to do. However,
while he is doing the crap work, he is not allowed to look like crap so away we
went. Given that all the holidays are
over stores are putting things on tremendous clearance which makes my soul
incredibly happy. Of course, given that the whole store is practically on sale
I wasn’t really going to sit and look at men’s socks and ties so I ventured
off. Whilst alone I discovered candles and dog sweaters. You bet your bottom
dollar I went ahead and picked me up both of those items. They only had the one
sweater which was a blessing because I went a little hog wild and decided that
if 1 candle on clearance was a good idea imagine how great 14 would be! Can you
imagine how nuts it would be to own 14 sweaters !?! I did eventually come to my senses and returned
all but 2 of the candles, but the tags had already come off the sweater and it
brings me much joy! He looks super fancy whereas it is a grey cable knit with a
red collar. He also looks slightly embarrassed to be seen it which almost made
me consider not taking him out in it. That’s when I realized that the crazy had
started. I was considering the thoughts and feelings of a dog! The slope became
steeper and I fell even further.
I am trying to convince the Wonderpup that he likes car
rides. If I ever get to leave Rexburg again, I am going to need to take him
with me and I can’t do that now given the way he chooses to ride. He sits in my
lap and wiggles like he is trying to make shake and bake chicken for pete’s
sakes! Eventually he wears himself out and then passes out which I am almost certain
can not be good for him for a myriad of reasons. I have been taking him on
small jaunts and on Saturday enlisted my niece to be the holder so that I could
drive. I had to take Ma back to her car and thought it would be the perfect
distance. Kate held him, sang in his ear, and almost demonstrated proper dog
form by sticking her out the window but changed her mind when the frigid air
hit her snout. All was going well when I remembered he was out of his water
additive. It this stuff I put in his water that prevents plaque and keeps bad
breath at bay. I also decided that I needed to buy him a dog harness to replace
his leash. The instructions for measuring for those things is about as simple
as solving all the mysteries of the universe so I thought taking my dog inside
of a store and letting him try it on would remove all of the complications. They
sell both the additive and the harnesses at the CAL ranch and I thought to
myself that a store that caterers to animals would surely allow me to bring my
animal into their establishment so away we went. It was only as I hit the
parking lot that I realized that I didn’t have his leash but I couldn’t be
bothered with small details such as that so against the better judgement of
perhaps the whole world I took my pupper unleashed inside of a store.
I stopped and asked permission to let him try on the harness
and the teenager told me of course with his mouth, but his eyes were screaming
lady your dog is unleashed and you appear to be insane but you are also giant so
proceed. We found the isle and the true adventure began. It turns out that
there are at least a bagillion leashes, harnesses and vest on the market. I found
one that I thought would fit and that is when I learned that if the instructions
for measuring are vague and complicated the actual inserting of an animal into
a harness is darn near impossible. There is no real way to tell which side goes
on the belly and there are 3 holes instead of I don’t know say 4 which is how
many legs a dog has. There is a combination of buckles, snaps, fasteners and
loops that would make any souls head spin. The list looks even bigger to a soul
who is holding a scared puppy who is trying to kamikaze from my death grip to
meet his imminent doom on the tiles below. As if the combination of closures isn’t
enough the use the most random breeds to indicate what size one needs to outfit
their animal makes the problem even bigger. One of their really crappy “helpful”
breed choices was terrier. Who on earth owns just a terrier? Are they not aware
that there are at least 50 types? I might have made that number up, mainly because
I did a quick google search to validate myself and it required reading and math
to come up with the real number and aint nobody got time for that. Seriously
though how in the devil am I supposed to know how big my dog is in relation to
other dogs? At first Kate and I tried to just shove him into a few harnesses. It
ended badly so then we upped the game and googled dogs of similar size. While I
was trying to do scientific research, I set my dog down. He immediately started
to lick the floor, and to add insult to injury google also didn’t have an
answer to that question. I am beginning to think google can’t solve all of my
problems after all but I digress. Realizing that wasn’t going to end well I sat
on the filthy floor instead and put him in my lap. I was in too deep to consider exactly how vile
that floor was. I then tried to distract him with a toy. I figured it would add
to the allure when another human bought it and gave it to their animal because
now it would smell like another dog and don’t all dogs really want that instead
of new toy smell? The only thing Simon wanted on the toy was the tag and I didn’t
want to have to buy the toy after he destroyed the tag so I put it back. At
this point a girl had wandered onto the isle and had very judgey eyes. I knew
she didn’t need anything after exactly 2 seconds but was only there to witness
the circus act currently in progress on aisle 9. I remained cool and didn’t
screech Get outta here creep in hopes that karma would bless me. Thankfully it did,
that or Kate is much better at technology than I am and she sussed out which
size we would need and bless her little soul also figured out how to correctly get
the dog in to boot. She got him in there and as a cosmic joke it was too large.
She too was in too deep and decided that she would simply tighten it and using
her teeth and sheer force of will got the sliding things to move to shrink it
down. By this point the doggo was not having any of this and out of desperation
I opened a treat and shoved it in his general direction. I was so desperate I
didn’t even check to see if it was gluten free and decided that if it wasn’t it
would be my penance for making bad decisions. I quickly explained to Kate that
it was the exact same thing as giving jelly beans to a toddler in the grocery
store which both justified my actions and placated her. By some miracle
everything worked and I almost pushed my luck in trying to decide if I really
wanted a different color. Kate quickly brought me back to the urgency of the
situation and we made our way to checkout.
I figured we were home free but of course my treat didn’t have
a bar code and the guy had to have a person go check the price. Some guy walked
over and started to pet Simon telling us how he had a Boston Terrier as well
and how he loved them all. All that validation was too much for my boy and he
lost it and whizzed all down Kate’s shirt. While her luck had turned for the worse,
I used the delay to realize that they had over charged me for the harness. She
lost, I won which is about as an accurate description of life as I can see.
Luckily, she loves me
and not only forgave me instantly but also helped to wrangle my dog into his handsome
sweater and new harness and came with me on a walk while her shirt was in the
wash. I wonder if she will agree to go boot shopping for him next week? I will keep
you posted. Until then here is a bonus picture.
