A Dog Day Afternoon

Our dogs have lost their minds lately.   I’ll be the first to tell you that we don’t have the best behaved dogs.   They have their golden moments, but for the most part they are jumping, slobbering, couch-coveting beasts.   And I love them.   As intrusive as they might be, they are only that way because we treat them like part of our family.   For five years now, the dogs have been our children.   Our hairy, smelly, spoiled children.

Lately though, they seem to be worse.   Take the couch, for example.   We recently moved our living room furniture around so that Chris and I could get more use out of our couch and loveseat.   The problem with this is that for the past few years, the couches have sort of belonged to the dogs.   Now, they are pissed that we are trying to relocate them.   When Chris and I sit on the couch now, the dogs don’t try to lay with us or cuddle or spend time with us.   They growl.   They moan.   They throw themselves at our feet, whining over the injustice that has vicimized them.

Such drama queens.

And its not just the couch.   They dogs are now incredibly vocal whenever they feel they have been cheated.   And cheated to them can be something as simple as not being fed at exactly 5:55 PM.   If we are even 5 minutes late feeding Lucy (the little one), she throws herself at our ankles, moaning and barking until food appears in her bowl.

Clearly, something needed to change.   We tried ignoring them.   We tried putting them in time out.   We tried giving them everything they wanted.   Nothing helped.   The dogs stayed in their rut and Chris and I continued to be frustrated with them.   Finally today, we thought of a different way to handle this whole situation.   Maybe the dogs were bored.   They’ve been inside for the past few months because of the weather.   They are tired of each other, of us, of their toys, of their food, of their couches.   Maybe they needed a make over and a change in scenery.

So, we packed up this morning and took them to the park to take out some of their frustrations on ducks, small children, and the elderly.   It was a glorious success.

After a good romp in the park, we had a little water break at the car before heading home.   Good thing the dogs are professionals when it comes to drinking out of Solo cups.   Comes from all that practice stealing beers at house parties…

The trip home was a little tricky.   Since Lucy was a puppy, she has been riding on my lap on our weekend trips to visit Chris in college.   She’s a road warrior.   A trooper.   A traveler.   Planes, trains, or automobiles – she’s done them all without so much as a blink.

Molly, however, was not blessed with the travel gene.

In fact, she is such a lousy traveler, that she didn’t even make it all the way home from our adventure this morning.   She got so sick in the car that Chris had to get out and walk her the last few blocks home.

But once we got everyone home via their preferred method of travel, the dogs were 100% satisfied.   They had taken the edge off and seemed calmer and not so pissy.

I guess sometimes you just need to walk it off…