Practicing Self-Restraint

Last year at this time we had just moved and were eagerly enjoying all the exciting things that the suburbs and Greenwich had to offer. Turns out there's not as much in the offering as one may have hoped, but the quality of life is a big plus. There is one little event, though, that merits mention: Puttin' on the Dog.



As you can see, we've been before. And while it's still a big N-O on the can we please have a dog front, that doesn't mean I can't handle myself in a mature fashion around dogs. I has grownupness!

Furthermore, one of the women from my knitting group will be there volunteering and I will be most pleased to introduce devoted partner to her - after all, he needs someone to blame for my strange fiber habits.

And of course there will be dogs. Lots and lots of dogs. Some in silly hats, I think. And the point of this post is to allow me to get all of my dogcrazy out ahead of time so that I may comport myself as an adult tomorrow. You know the kind of crazy that took these videos.



I know devoted partner and I shall own dogs one day and that tomorrow is not that day. So I will do my best not to whine, whinge, or any other wh-words. Cause I'm a big girl.

The Dream Was Sweet While It Lasted

For a couple glorious days I imagined training my Molosser to eat people on the train who spoke too loudly on their cellphones, playing frisbee in the surf, and snuggling by the tv, but it was not meant to be. At least not this year. While the landlady was enthusiastic about our paying her more in rent when we renew our lease, she was far less enthusiastic about our having a dog. In hindsight, she would have done better to ask for the increase before I asked for the dog. Knowing the dog was an impossibility did shut my pocketbook rather tightly. We said we'd give her rate of inflation rounded to the nearest $50.

So, for now, I will content myself as I have for years accosting other people's dogs. Case in point, when I got on the train this morning there was a rather large cocker spaniel that needed playing with. His owner said she welcomed my attentions since her household had just acquired a kitten which was getting the lion's share of petting. Happy to oblige, I pet the hell out of her dog. The dog was really into it too, going so far as to jump up and lick my face in gratitude (this is why I don't wear a lot of makeup).

Dogs really are wonderful creatures. While basking in the temporary unconditional love of the spaniel, I hardly noticed the train passengers who generally make my skin crawl (ok, I did note the woman who huffed exasperatedly at the train conductor when he asked for her ticket - didn't he see she was ON THE PHONE?). Dogs are transporting experiences.

And of all the misgivings, fears, anxieties, etc. I have about the possibility of starting a human family one day, precisely zero of them are felt vis a vis the raising of a dog. And I think I've located the cause: dogs are puppies for far less time than humans are puppies. Yes, raising a puppy is hard work - for 6-9 months. And even during those 6-9 months you can get the dog to use the bathroom where you want, feed itself from its bowl, and ambulate. During this time, you can also teach the dog to catch a frisbee - something your human puppy will need at least 6 years to achieve. Can I work up a little mistiness from time to time over the vision of devoted partner playing catch with our human spawn? Sure. I'm not a monster. But then I think of all the effort that goes into getting to the point where I can witness that movie of the week moment and I suddenly find myself exhausted and not a little bit resentful. Not so with the dog.

But for now, it seems, both playing catch daydreams will remain daydreams and poor Matt will be the recipient of my whimpering and longing glances as I molest his charming dogs with all my pent up love.

Still, much like our daydreams of winning the lottery, we had a good deal of fun planning for our future dog. Maybe next year.

The Time Has (Maybe) Come

For those advanced mathematicians out there, it will come as not surprise that we are coming up to our one-year suburban anniversary. Like all anniversaries, this one is allowing us to take stock and plan for the future. I, for one, would like peacock colored sheets and drapes, and possibly some form of ottoman cum table for the living room; the latter is on devoted partner's list as well. But Matt, of excellent frienddom and New Jersey Beer Company, has yet again insinuated his canine companions into my heart in a way that has it pitter pattering in ways most annoying to, for example, devoted partner-types.

When we moved in to the house, we knew there was a no pet policy. Now that we've been here a year and have, I think, demonstrated what upstanding responsible adults we are, I think there might be some wiggle room. So we're going to ask. I give us about a 40% chance of success in getting our landlady to agree and then a 50% chance of agreeing to have and properly selecting our first dog. So, mathpeople, that's an overall 20%. Devoted partner would probably like me to take this opportunity to point out that this is real math, not Yelena math. In Yelena math world that number would represent the total percentage of n puppies I would adopt - also known as 1 in 5 puppies. But here we're talking about real math.

Also in the no-surprises-here category is the fact that I have already commenced puppy browsing. After always getting all misty-eyed about a puppy, our last trip to the North Shore Animal League got me seriously thinking about adopting a dog, not a puppy. First of all, the tugging-at-heartstrings factor is strong with me. The puppies are easy to find homes for, not so the dogs. Also, with luck, we could find an adult dog that was surrendered to a shelter by a family who moved or couldn't take care of him as opposed to one found on the highway gnawing at the carcass of a rusted out Volvo. Yes, we want a big dog, but I'm becoming more amenable to medium-sized dogs as well. Witness my finds and share you preferences! (And if you are Matt, this is not an invitation for YOU to adopt more dogs. Unless they are brewmasters.)

In the medium-sized dog category we have the always beautiful doberman. I really like the brown ones and I like them with their natural ears. Devoted partner disagrees. I'd have to find out more about what kind of growth was removed from Raven's back since we're not really looking to adopt a dog whose health problems will bankrupt us. Also, Raven is a mad stupid name. We'd be changing that immediately.

I don't know what this thing is, regardless of the site telling me it MIGHT be a mastiff/viszla. I do know that the vacant look on his face is very very appealing. He seems ready to unconditionally love me and please me and, frankly, I chose a smart devoted partner; do I really need a smart dog?

Francois (name acceptance pending) has that "who's a good boy" thing going for him. I think he would enjoy playing stick, frisbee, tennis ball, and other exciting games of that ilk. I think he could also be convinced into trying some of those games in conjunction with lake. But, as with pretty much any pit, I'd want to hang out with him for a while before making any decision.

Now for some larger dogs. This dog, whose name will also be changed as I would no sooner name a big red dog Clifford than I would name a chocolate labrador Hershey, is completely different from the type of dog I usually go for. He's leaner through the chest and shoulders, seems relaxed and not interested in eating my neighbors, and doesn't really have that badass gene. Still, something about him was immediately fascinating to me. He screamed out, "I'd be a really easy first dog to have." And I have to agree with him.

Now the rottweiler has always held an infinitely special place in my heart. I simply love them and they match all of my clothing. I think I would look tremendously sexy walking a rottweiler and also tremendously intimidating. Gracie could keep her name. Gracie is a great name for a rottweiler. Now she doesn't have the super-intimidating look that I always imagined of my rottweiler, but I still think she and I will be able to achieve the proper look with some practice.

Finally, while I didn't find a neo, I did find a bordeaux (who, continuing the list of names I wouldn't give dogs, would not be named anything dumbass like Lafite, Petrus, or Haut-Brion). She's a girl, which I like, and also her smooshie face is pretty darn perfect. She beat out Barney, the mastiff mix, as the representative mastiff of the bunch. I'd pretty much pick her up this afternoon and then spend the rest of her life preventing myself from over-buying her pink, non-sweater, accessories.

These are my pretend-adoptable dogs for the week. I'm actually quite curious which of them you like. And I guess we'll try to talk to our landlady this week or the next to gauge her reaction to our becoming dog owners. Then the only difficult talks we'll be having will be with one another.

Courtney

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Originally uploaded by reallyct

This is Courtney. She is not our dog. I have spent the past 48 hours hoping/having anxiety dreams that some really nice couple or family have adopted Courtney. Because I couldn't.

Let's backtrack. Devoted partner and I attended the Adoptathon at the North Shore Animal League this past weekend. We first learned about it last year from an adorable 6 or 7 year old on the D train who was over the moon about the puppy he had just adopted and told us we absolutely had to go the next day because Cesar Millan was there. Not one to pass up an opportunity to window lick at the puppy palace and to get a photo with the Dog Whisperer, I used my best puppy dog eyes on devoted partner and off we went to Long Island (strangely not as bad as one is led to believe). We went again this year.

Now we live in a lovely house with a lovely landlady who, it seems, has had more than a couple of bad experiences with tenants and their pets. Both devoted partner and I think there could be some wiggle room, perhaps with the promise of additional security deposit/installation of invisible fence etc., but we just haven't gotten around to doing it because we know that once we do, we're definitely getting a dog and much as we would really really like to be dog owners, we also know it's a huge responsibility and one we are not willing to halfass. Still, we love dogs and the adoptathon is really really a nice time. (And thankfully none of the volunteers remembered us from last year as the people who fondled multiple dogs and adopted none of them).

The North Shore Animal League puts on a great show and they smartly ask would-be adopters to walk through the selection of adult animals before letting them at the puppies. This is a hard gauntlet to walk because it is immediately apparent which dogs are not destined for adoption. NSAL is a no-kill shelter, may they be endlessly praised for this, but some of the dogs are, well, broken. You see the eyes and you hear the growl and you know this is a dog that needs more help than most people are willing or able to give. And that is really really sad. I was heartened to see a number of families getting to know the adult dogs in the atrium, but most people came for the puppies including, frankly, us. As we rounded the corner I saw this dog and probably said something like, "ah, shit, she's going to have a hard time getting adopted," and we moved on, eager to see the puppies.

And there were puppies galore - lots of cute ones too. My early favorite was a fawn colored hound who liked chewing on my fingers; devoted partner liked a shepherd mix. We were pleased to see both of them picked up by happy families. Still, while there were many cute puppies, none of them was The One. We walked around a bit more, hoping to see the new puppies being brought from the back, and to kill time we walked around the adult dogs again. This time, I stopped at Courtney's enclosure. I like pits. I think they can be amazing dogs, provided you're willing to put in the time to temper their natural enthusiasm - they're a bit like boxers that way. You just have to be able to determine whether or not the one you're about to pet would like to roll on its back to give you access to its stomach which needs petting or if it would like to eat your hand. This dog wanted belly rubs. She came up and smelled our hands and let us pet her through the grate; then she got up on her hind legs and leaned her head over the top.

It was right around this time that I sort of lost it. I just knew in my heart of hearts that this was a good dog. That this was a dog who would love you forever. And that would be immediately dismissed as not suitable pet material by most of the people walking by. 2 1/2 year old pit bulls are not at the top of people's adoptable lists and this made me uncontrollably sad. I knew she wasn't going to be our dog, but I wanted her to be someone's dog because I could so easily see how she would seamlessly fit into our household and I knew we weren't the only ones. Devoted partner was a mensch - after all, I'm sure his idea of a fun time did not include looking for paper towels so that his woman could mop up her blubbering.

I've thought about Courtney a lot since then and even in my wildest fantasies - our landlady immediately agrees we should have a dog, doesn't mind that it's an adult pit bull who will be moving in next to her two grandchildren, Courtney is still at the shelter and we get approved to adopt her, she turns out to be the kind of wonderful pet that would eat neither Hogie nor Saunders - well, it still doesn't make sense. We're off to Miami for nearly a week later this month, and then to Nicaragua the next. We're truly not at a place where a dog makes sense - at least not for the next couple of months.

So I'm going to believe that someone fell in love with Courtney the way I did and that right now she's at her new home with good people and yummy treats. Cause just thinking about it is making me cry a little.

Wednesday Nopropos

Yeah, I'm in a crap mood because I just spent 90 minutes at the dentist. I am now ready to assert that dental hygienists are bigger sadists than aestheticians who specialize in waxing. Therefore I am only in the mood for crying and ice cream and not so much for being entertaining.

That being said.

Having admitted my addiction to the wily yarn, I went to a weekly stich n bitch last night. And I might be hooked. First of all, grouping with women I don't know is an outside my comfort zone activity and, as such, a good thing. Secondly, these women were my age and certainly personable. Thirdly, I successfully managed to order nothing at Panera Bread save an iced tea which I sweetened with (gasp) splenda.

This weekend is the annual North Shore Animal League Adoptathon. We went last year, I got my picture taken with Cesar Milan, I played with puppies. We're going again this year. Some might say this is tempting fate, but unless I can line up some babysitters (puppysitters) for the third week in May and the second full week in June, I think we'll be coming home empty handed. I'm just hoping the people who work there don't recognize us from last year and accuse us of coming with no intent to rescue a puppy (last year we just didn't meet our dog - we met lots of cute dogs, but none of them was a love at first sight).

I am still flummoxed by people who hear that the conductor is coming to check tickets and still wait until he asks them personally before they go rifling through their bags to search for their tickets. This isn't rocket science, people, have your ticket out. The conductor has a whole bunch of other tickets to check so help him out by not sucking.

I am not green. Not by a long shot. My next car is going to be a clean diesel. Since my driving mainly consists in 3rd gear shuffles to and from the train station, I am getting abysmal mileage out of my fillups. I sort of fist pump when I make it past 20mpg.

My teeth hurt, they're making me go back in two weeks, I want a puppy, and a suntan, and a banana split. So excuse me while I go whine less publicly.

Irrational Fears

Driving home last night after dinner alone, I was overcome with a fear so acute that I got a little emotional in the car. Let me back up a moment to say that I am not the biggest fan of poorly lit night driving. As anyone who has ever been bored to tears by me or devoted partner recounting the minutiae of our 10-week post-collegiate European trip will know, we drove from Prague to Essaouira in Morocco non-stop over the course of three days, meaning I have had a bit of night driving under my belt. But as anyone who has ever driven at night knows, there is a vast difference between night driving on a massive interstate/international highway, and driving through the barely lit nooks and crannies of a suburban neighborhood (see also driving through Manhattan at night which is pie).

While others may fear hitting deer on the Meritt Parkway or moose in Maine, my biggest fear is hitting someone's dog.

I can't really even put into words how absolutely devastated I would be. Last night as I wound my way through the side streets that would take me from the parkway to my garage, I played the interaction through: the absolute horror that would strike at the moment of impact, the feverish hope that the dog was merely wounded or stunned, and the absolutely gut-wrenching walk to the owner's house, begging the void that there are no children, and having to tear-stainedly admit to hitting their dog. (Even though I recognize that dogs should not be out at night roaming the streets, I would still feel entirely at fault.)

And I wonder if telling the distraught owner how much I adore dogs, how in my old age I even like and play with the small ugly ones, how I want nothing more than to be surrounded by drooly happy puppies, and that my worst nightmare is to run one over, would make any difference. I suspect not.

This would account for why, if you find yourself driving behind me at night, on the quiet streets, you would be tempted to tailgate or honk, seeing as you might want to proceed at a speed greater than the 17mph I am inching along at; I don't know if 17mph is slow enough to merely bruise the puppies of Fairfield and Westchester counties, but I hope so. I apologize for my slowness in advance.

Puppy Love

Update: if you still don't have my xmas gift. Click here!

I hath been smote.

Our home had an unexpected visitor yesterday, and she left a lasting impression on me. Her name is, as yet, undecided, for she is a new addition to our friend's family, but she was the cutest visitor our happy home has yet welcomed.

This little puppy, all of 11 weeks old, looked to my untrained eye, like a part dalmatian, part pitbull, part something else kind of small. She was speckled like baby dalmatians are with two adorably floppy black ears, and she was just delicious.

As many (ok everyone who knows me) know, I have a small dog problem. I love dogs. I stalk dogs. I go to dog adopt-a-thons and ogle dogs. I do not have a dog. And until we sort out whether or not our landlady would approve a dog and what we would do with our dog when we traveled, we will not have a dog. So I am the crazy dog lady who follows your dogs. But, strangely enough, I had never spent this much time with a tiny puppy until yesterday.

They are even better than their advertisements. They make little puppy sounds and when they open their mouths they have little milk teeth; they smell sweet and are oh so soft; and, best of all, this one just oozed love. While her daddy was in the yard tiring out her older brother, a charming but overenergetic pitrador (labrapit?), she just hung out in the kitchen with me, looking up at me with those eyes.

Later, when it looked like she was tired, devoted partner made a fatal mistake: he made her a little puppy bed out of one of our beach towels and swaddled her in the corner. Why he was foolish enough to do that in my presence, one can never know, but his considerate affection was palpable betraying his puppy love vulnerability. And she looked so cute napping in our beach towel.

This morning as we were readying ourselves for the day I asked devoted partner how long he thought I could carry a mastiff in a bag (thereby being allowed to take it on public transport), and if he thought I could pass off an army duffel as a bag. He thought I had maybe eight weeks of being able to conceal a mastiff on the subway.

I know well that this Christmas will not see a small dog object with a ribbon round its neck, but snuggling with someone else's new puppy served as a reminder that the ending of my days of puppylessness will be on the agenda more and more as we explore non-urban living.

Pity Flocked

Pretending for a moment that there are readers of this minimum opus who do not know me personally, it should probably be mentioned that I like dogs.

If by "like" you mean "obsessed with." See also: "stalkerish," "won't shut up aboutish," and "prone to tantrumish."

Devoted partner and I are not currently dog owners. After years of living in a small vertical box where devoted partner claimed my future 120lb.+ dog would suffer, we moved to a lovely attached-lawn house whose landlady specifically delineated that no pets of any sort would be welcomed.

I live in a house. In the suburbs. Without a dog.

Fortunately, our friends are totally on my side. Amy frequently forwards us emails about dogs who need homes; AB IMs me links to the Neapolitan Mastiff rescue nearest me. Devoted partner silently sobs in the corner while plotting revenge.

I went to a wine store this past week I had not been to before in the greater Greenwich area (to which a future post will be devoted) to pick up some wine only to discover that a yellow Labrador lived at the store. The AWESOMEST yellow Labrador to ever grace the world.

A lab who, within thirty seconds of meeting my acquaintance was giving me his paws, encouraging rough-housing, and generally bestowing upon me the kind of unconditional love my life has been missing due to a dog drought. I was immediately smitten in a Fatal Attraction, when the owner's back is turned I'm stealing the dog, kind of way. When I left the store that first night, the dog, Sonoma, went to the windowed door and stared out at me with, yes, puppy dogs eyes, beseeching me to return so we could play more.

Naturally I went back to the store.

It was then, during my second round of playtime with Sonoma that I got a strange feeling. Like the dog knew more than he was letting on. I think Sonoma knew I was dogless and upset by my doglessness. He decided the way to cheer me up was to spend an inordinate amount of affection on me: pawing, licking, sniffing, following, looking up with happy puppy eyes. When I relayed this to devoted partner, he tossed off, "oh, so you mean the dog was pity flocking you?" (Editor's note: obviously that is not a verbatim rendering of devoted partner's words, but I know some of you read this at work and I do my best to permit that sort of thing to continue.)

So now even dogs can sense my desperation for, well, dogs. I am officially the easy girl at the party where dogs are concerned and I fully anticipate that the dogs of greater Fairfield County, to say nothing of those of the Upper East side of Manhattan, will begin to pursue me, sticks and frisbees in their waiting mouths because they know I can't say no. Sadly for my self-esteem in this metaphor, I will welcome them all gladly, play with them until night falls and their true owners drag them away, and return to my dogless house to turn my longing eyes on poor, maligned devoted partner (because, as I'm sure is evident, he is standing in the way of my dog ownership - not the landlady, and that his own desire for a dog is a ruse to make me feel like we're in this together).

I hope you can now see why it is imperative for the health of this relationship that we have separate rooms!