I have a question…
The high light of my weekend is the fact that my dog Delia was accepted at “doggy day care”. Does this mean I’ve settled? Does it mean I’m no longer the wild and crazy, stumbling-home drunk, making out with guys in the bathroom, dancing half naked, twenty-five year old I used to be? Have I reached that point called “marriage?” Am I a no-fun, married, stay at home, addicted to the Home and Garden Channel, I can’t go out because E.R. is on, twenty-six year old I appear to be today? Is that really me?
I suppose I’m a mix of both. Out of respect for the boyfriend, I no longer make out with boys in the bathroom. On the other hand, I can still be found dancing shirtless around a pole every now and then with my friends. The ability to stumble home drunk I left behind with my old roommate and best friend Clay, and yet, I still enjoy going out and getting a good buzz on with my friend Tim. When
Now, before I venture into the deep end of the great swimming pool of life, I must rant and rave about something while I still wallow in the shallow end with the children. Why, oh why, must one’s dog apply to a day care facility? Shouldn’t they, like any old business, just want my money? But that’s no longer enough these days. It’s like college: you shop around, you go on tours and over night visits, compare costs and distance from home. Will she be able to come home on weekends? Is it a party school? Will she be able to pledge a sorority while still maintaining the high academic excellence I demand from her?
Once you have your “dream” day-care, your “sure thing” and your “back up”, it’s time to start the application process.
Question number one: Is your dog spayed or neutered? That is mandatory, and while it’s not on many college and university campuses, I can’t help but think maybe it should be. It would take away much of the drama that can distract serious students from their work. On the other hand, it can also take away all the fun. Well, needless to say, Delia passed with flying colors. We had her uterus yanked out when she was six months old. True, that’s probably not what veterinarians do, but that’s what I told Delia when we dropped her off for two days at the dreaded vet’s.
“They’re going to take away your uterus,” I told her, “The last thing I need is for my girl to get knocked up by some stray at a protest rally. Babies should not have babies.” I learned that from the Jenny Jones Show.
Question number two: Do you have an updated history of all her shots? Oh, I thought, of course, I carry them with me in my wallet. NO! Of course I don’t have an updated history of all her shots! But she can’t get in without them, so I call her vet, who, unfortunately, is a good forty-five minute drive away.
“Can you please fax Delia’s transcripts—I mean records—to this number please,” I ask Shelly the receptionist. She then launches into how she hasn’t seen Delia in a while, but she just saw my parent’s dog Maggie when she came in to get groomed. In fact, she continues, she’s seen one or two of my parents’ dogs at least once a month for the last year. Well, that’s great, Shelly, but that’s probably because Emma, the yellow lab, is obese; Duke, the chocolate lab, has some sort of digestive problem that causes him to shit everywhere and eat dirt; and Maggie’s a walking corpse of a terrier who needs to be put out of her misery. Mom, however, is waiting for God to take her from the family and do his work. Meanwhile, Maggie, deaf and blind as she is, is getting herself trapped in various corners around the house and can’t get out. My parents’ dogs are in and out of the vet as often as Robert Downey Jr. is in and out of rehab—and jail.
Question number three: Will Delia be able to come in tomorrow for two hours for an evaluation as she interacts with the other dogs?
“Uh, does she have to?” I asked.
Yes.
Before I moved into the city, Delia spent the summer at my parents’ house. We called it “camp”. Delia spent the summer at camp. With the strict discipline my father dishes out, it was really more like boot camp. Dogs, however, really only understand tone of voice, so if we made it sound fun and exciting she would never know that her summer was going to totally suck. My parents made clear that while under their roof Delia was to adhere to their rules and schedules with no exceptions. As long as she kept her place in line, she was free to run and play with the other dogs and knock my baby nephew Cordell to the floor with her tail.
The other dogs grew sick of her quickly. Delia has a lot of energy. Part black lab and part border collie, she loves to run, wrestle, jump, run some more and then run some more. She has enough energy that if you put her in a hamster wheel she could produce enough energy to light up a small town for a year or so. I sympathize with the other dogs. They could only handle her for so long. Eventually, should she have stayed into the fall, they would have ganged up on her and killed her.
My mother lives to walk dogs (and clean, but that’s another story). It’s really all she does. Each dog goes out separately for various reasons. Emma (the obese one) runs—well, waddles—away all the time. She has to stay on the leash. Duke (the one who shits) is not allowed out with Emma because they just end up eating dirt together. Delia can not go out at the same time as Emma because Delia wants to play, and being on a leash, Emma can’t. Entanglement ensues, my mom falls and ruins her new Liz Claiborne blouse, and now, Emma goes out by herself. Duke flat out refuses to go out at the same time as Delia. He hates her. He’s like, oh hell no. Screw that. I will shit all over the house if you bring her out with me. He’s done it too. That’s why Duke now goes out by himself. Maggie, because she is so old and often trapped in a corner, needs to be guided out by my mom. So, she can’t have Emma on the leash or Delia being a pesky pain in the ass, or stop Duke from eating dirt. Maggie goes out by herself. Delia goes out by herself. Four separate walks. Multiply that times six (that’s how many times she takes the dogs out per day). And thus concludes my Mom’s day. A good night’s sleep follows, and then it’s up at the crack of dawn to do it all over again.
When I arrived home to pick Delia up at the end of the summer, my mom, dad, sister, and little Cordell had all of Delia’s belongings packed in to a little bag and waited with her at the end of the driveway. They really didn’t even let me stop the car. They just threw her in as I slowed and then told me to “get her the hell out of our house, and don’t you ever bring her back!” Delia will NOT be sending them a card on Grandparents’ Day.
So I was a little nervous then about this evaluation thing. Colleges often do interviews with prospective students. During my own interview for college, I found it very easy to lie and feed them what they wanted to here. If they threw me in college for a weekend and evaluated me without me knowing, then I probably wouldn’t have gotten accepted. Even with my awesome essay, excellent grades and perfect attendance through twelve years of school (I could have been bleeding out my eyes and my mother would still make me go to school), I probably wouldn’t have gotten in. I was drunk the entire prospective student weekend.
It’s not that Delia doesn’t get along well with others. It’s just that she doesn’t get along with them for so long. As I dropped her off that Sunday morning for her evaluation period, I kept my fingers crossed. I squatted next to her, told her it will be alright, and quietly whispered in her ear: “Now remember, I got into college because I pretended to be someone I wasn’t. You deserve to get in to this day care. I suggest you be someone you’re not. Good luck.”
Two hours later, I arrived to pick her up. The attendant sat me down, pulled out Delia’s chart, and flipped through the pages. Pages? For a dog?
“Well,” she said, “Delia did okay.”
A sigh of relief.
“However, we do have some concerns…”
That phrase reminds me of a lot of my own parent/teacher conferences.
“Delia is quite aggressive sometimes with the other dogs, barking at them, not letting them lay down, that sort of thing…she’s a little bossy with the other dogs.”
Ah, see, I call that leadership.
“And she doesn’t seem to stop moving, she’s always pacing and running around…”
I’ve always encouraged her to keep physically fit and to participate in athletics. Colleges like a well rounded student.
“And she likes to—well, kind of jump on some of the other dogs”
I see. Well, she picked that up from her Uncle Clay. But that’s imitation. She’s intelligent.
Now, months later, Delia is settling into her role as most popular girl on campus, as I am settling into the role of proud father. And as with any proud father, upon graduation I will slowly pressure her into taking a path with her life so that I may live out my own unfulfilled dreams and goals through her.
The boyfriend and I are the epitome of my care-free and single friends’ fear: we own the home, two cars, and have a dog. Not a weekend goes by that we don’t argue. We are rapidly aging beyond our years. We watch a lot of television and we have our favorite shows.
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