That Dog

Our 19 pound beagle was our first baby. The Husband gave her to me as a birthday gift 6 and a half years ago. A rescue, she's always been a little neurotic. She is afraid of newspapers and men in hats. She tries to eat out of the trash and recycling. She has ulcerative colitis and has bloody diarrhea if she eats something unusual or if she has to be boarded.  She's had heartworms 3 times despite being on preventatives. She once peed on our friend Marvin and ate Hershey Kisses, leaving the wrappers entirely intact. She whines anytime she has a toy because she doesn't know where to bury it. The only thing that makes her stop is taking the toy away or giving her a towel to hide it under. When my BFF Kati and I went to NYC on a trip she won on the Price is Right The Husband called to say that Prissy had eaten a AA battery, went into antiphylactic shock, had to be revived and given epinephrine and was recovering at the emergency vet.  I told The Husband to go to any means necessary to save that dog. He said the UGA vet school could do an assessment for $1500 just to get a diagnosis. "Okay, don't do that" I said. Needless to say, she's a little high maintenance. And worth every bit of it.

This is last year's Christmas card picture. 

When I got pregnant she started being more protective of me and wouldn't leave my side. I wondered how the new baby would affect her and hoped she'd be okay. One night I told the Husband I was going to bed. He said casually "take that dog with you." That dog. Agast! It was just like Lady in the Tramp when Lady's owners had a baby and loved her just a little less. I told Prissy that would never happen to her.
 

Before The Boy was born we looked at getting Priss a dog door. The old door that came with our old house (old house, as in our house is old, not as in the house we used to have) couldn't be cut for a dog door. So we bought a new door. And a dog door. And The Husband installed the dog door. And we presented the beautiful new dog door to her, and she was terrified of it. Wouldn't go near it. Ran from it. So we trained her on using the door with treats, and with one of us on each side of the door sticking our respective heads through. Gradually she learned to love it, and especially enjoyed going in and out 16 times in the middle of the night each night.

Then we had The Boy, and Prissy tolerated him okay. When he was brand new she sniffed at him and mostly left him alone. She wasn't getting as much attention and she was used to and it started to show. She has never once showed any aggression to The Boy or anyone else, but she started moping around and sighing heavily. She didn't want to play. I love her and wanted her to be okay. I took her to the vet and she started Prozac (generic, of course). She was taking lots of things outside and chewing them up. She commissioned a small parcel of yard as her museum and collected things there. Always there. We found pacies, bottles, formula containers, pieces to the breast pump, The Boy's toys, my retainer, The Boy's toothbrush, empty boxes from the recycling, a bag of fondant icing, all in various stages of being chewed. It started to look like the treasure trove of human collectibles from The Little Mermaid.


She knows better. She tries to be sneaky, so when we hear her run through the house and dash out the dog door we suspect she's up to something and we try to intervene. If The Boy throws his pacie out of his crib she and I have a foot race to be the first to get to it. The Boy thinks this is funny, even though he is supposed to be asleep.

Sunday night I couldn't find my retainer, so I grabbed a flashlight and went out into the yard (naturally). I stepped over an empty bag that 3 pounds of potatoes came in as I walked out. Odd, I thought. I picked up the bag and threw it away. I went to Prissy's treasure trove area and began scanning the grass with the flashlight. Something caught my eye. At first I thought it was some sort of dead vermin she'd caught but then as I looked closer it hit me.

Potato. That dog had dragged a potato outside.  A potato! And not just one, my flashlight beamed across a colony of potatoes. It looked like she was starting a potato garden. Some had teeth marks in them, some were half peeled. The bag of potatoes had been on the kitchen table, which means she got in a chair, knocked them off the table, and then one by one, drug them through the dog door. Why? It was then that the flashlight sent a beam out and something sent a sparkle back. What was reflecting in the light? I approached it apprehensively. I couldn't tell what it was, so I walked slowly up to it and crouched down to get a closer look. I pointed the flashlight and found......an empty container of bacon bits. Potatoes and bacon bits...She was creating a potato bar! I'm sure if I'd waited a little longer she would've found some cheese and sour cream somewhere to go along with it.  The Boy is going to grow up thinking her name is UgghhPrissyno!