Interview with the dog

I read somewhere once that certain shrinks specialize in treating housepets. I think I need to track one down.

Our dog, a three-year-old, pure-bred golden retriever, exhibits more neuroses than a good Woody Allen movie. Basically, she’s not a pretty picture. Then again, neither is Woody Allen.

The primary problem with the dog is her submissive nature. Actually, calling her submissive is like calling Bill Gates a wee bit rich. You see, the dog pees a puddle whenever my wife or I call her over to us. Not that we’ve done anything to invoke such a response, other than smother her with affection and speak to her in baby talk. Of course, my oldest son would classify that as cruel and unusual punishment, but he’s another story altogether.

Then there’s the problem with visitors. Whenever one reaches down to pet our dog, she suffers an accident. We’ve taken to screaming, “Don’t pet the dog!”, anytime a visitor extends a hand in her direction. It’s either that or stand by and watch our guests receive a yellow foot-bath.

The sixty-five-pound canine is also dominated by our eleven-pound cat. The feline frequently stalks the dog, usually in an effort to get the beast to engage in a little play-fighting. However, this typically results in the dog chasing its own tail in an obvious effort to confuse the cat, thereby causing it to forget it’s plan and walk away.

The dog also experiences frequent bad dreams. I know this because she whimpers and whines in her sleep. I can only assume there’s a cat involved.

And she sheds hair like a tech stock sheds market value. Okay, that probably has little to do with her neuroses, but it still gets on my nerves.

However, it’s the pee problem that drives me crazy. According to the vet, yelling at her only makes it worse. And it doesn’t seem to help with the dog, either.

Yet sometimes it’s hard to stop myself. The other day, I was sitting at my desk when she sidled up next to me. I reached my hand over to pet her, then sensed something was amiss. Looking down, I saw a puddle forming and -- without thinking -- yelled for her to stop.

Of course, this only scared the dog into running away. The problem was, she forgot to turn off the faucet, resulting in a twenty-foot-long urine trail across the floor. My own little yellow-brick road.

I immediately retrieved our carpet-cleaning apparatus and went to work. The little green machine has more miles on it than an ’85 Toyota.

All of which recently led me to sit down with the dog to discuss the current situation.

Me: You’ve really got a problem suppressing your urine, don’t you?

Dog: Yeah, and thanks for pointing it out to the entire world.

Me: I wish I didn’t have to.

Dog: That makes two of us.

Me: Well what’s it all about, anyway?

Dog: Revenge for having me “fixed”.

Me: Seriously?

Dog: No. Actually, I come from a long line of pee-ers. My mother was a pee-er, my grandmother was a pee-er, and so on for countless generations. But I’m still not happy about that “fixed” thing.

Me: So the problem runs in your family? It’s funny that the breeder never mentioned anything when we were picking you out.

Dog: Well, if it helps clear things up, she told me after you left that I would soon be going home with the Sucker Family.

Me: Oh, that’s real nice…So, is there anything we can do to stop it from happening?

Dog: Yeah. First of all, you can stop using baby talk when you speak to me.

Me: That’s just our way of showing you affection.

Dog: Well, next time, maybe you could just show me some meat.

Me: Ya know, sometimes you can be a real--

Dog: Female dog? Yeah, I know.

Me: Well keep it up, and I’m gonna call in the cat.

Dog: Cat? Cat? Where’s the cat?

With that, the dog immediately began chasing after its tail.

While I watched the dog perform countless revolutions, the cat walked up.

I swear I heard it laugh.

Copyright 2003 Marc L. Prey
All rights reserved.