We get pretty set in our ways. Used to our lives. Like them just the way they are with their set patterns and rhythms and schedules. That’s the way we like our home life and our houses. To the guy who came up with the saying, “the only constant in life is change,” we blow you a raspberry and say, “Yeah, well, when was the last time you dog-sat for your brother, you old philosophical coot!”
Nothing makes you question whether the world will ever be the same again like dog-sitting.
“Oh great deity, please restore order to the chaos … I have a dog towel with muddy footprints on my kitchen floor!”
My brother went out of town this week for his son’s birthday, and his part-dog, part-cow named Ella came over for her regular re-orientation of the Thompson house.
It’s not the dog’s fault. Human houseguests at least have some awareness that they are in someone else’s home. They realize they need to TRY to adapt their ways to your ways in order to keep from getting kicked to the curb. A dog has no concept of this — no situational awareness. No clue that there is such a thing as three strikes and then they spend the night in the shed because they kept hopping on the sofa.
Because at their home, the sofa is fair game. The sofa is bed. And there’s a sofa over here! So why shouldn’t it be used it for its naturally-intended purpose: chewing loudly on your crotch for 15 or 20 minutes, and then passing out in a heap?
It’s not the dog’s fault. They just can’t understand this.
Or prowling their big bodies under the dining room table while you’re trying to eat. It’s like having an earthmover under there. And she has a thick tail that slaps at you like a 2×4. “How is your tail hitting me HERE if your head is way over THERE?” my wife snapped at one point.
Or how she can’t do anything without making a racket, but can stealthily sneak between my legs and park herself there like a tanker truck. Suddenly I’m pinned between dog and chair experiencing a claustrophobic panic attack while screaming, “Move the beast! World spinning faster!! Can’t feel my toes!!!”
I don’t adapt well to what I would term sudden-onset, nerve-jangling change. (I actually saw a drug commercial for just such a problem.) It makes me tense and agitated, and I begin to talk in ways I don’t like. I snap and say things like: “You stepped on my toes and your breath smells like a bird died in there!”
That’s not me. I mean, it’s all true, but I don’t like being that way. It’s not the dog’s fault. She probably just ate a dead bird. It happens. Just like change happens.
Luckily, just when I’ve reached my limit, just when I’m at the end of my rope and just when I think I can’t take it anymore, she looks up at me with those half-moon, sad-puppy eyes and an expression that seems to say, “I LOVE you, Uncle Brian!” Then I know change isn’t always so bad. (Especially if her family is coming home the next day.)