I Do Not Like My Dogs

We have three dogs. I do not like them. On another day I will tell you they are clever and entertaining and they make me laugh all the time. This is not that day. At this moment I do not like them at all.

I am on my knees scrubbing the carpet. Before I could start scrubbing I had to scrape up big globs of disgusting green matter that all three of them expelled more or less simultaneously. Would you like to know what that looked like? Me neither.

“It’s the chlorophyll,” my husband explained. His role is this drama is to corral the dogs so that they do not eat the regurgitated grassy mess. They sense my mood and stay away from me. Why do dogs do this? Why did we do this to ourselves?

Our friends smiled sagely several years ago when we began to accumulate these pests at the same pace our children grew up and left home. I know they thought we were crazy. They were right. At a time when we could choose to downsize, simplify, and lighten up, we instead acquired hairy, barky, up-chucky nuisances.

I have just about finished cleaning up. I make a mental note to purchase more carpet cleaner tomorrow and ironically, more dog food. I feel a gentle nudge at my arm. He is testing the waters. He knows I won’t stay angry long, and with the instinct dogs have, he can tell I may be ready to forgive. I absentmindedly rub his head and he erupts in joyous tail wagging. I do not like my dogs today, but they love me.