Finn
He is called Finn and is a miniature Australian shepherd. If you�re literate, you�ll go for Huckleberry Finn, followed by Finnegan�s Wake. If you�re not literate, you�ll tell me that Fin means five bucks and you�ll spell it with only one n. If you�re a member of the latter group, you�ll refuse to properly capitalize or punctuate your e-mails. You might also spell your very average name in an odd way, like �Monika� or �Jehknee� and try to pass it off as unusual and very exotic.
Anyway, this is Finn. He is slightly over nine weeks old and he has changed my entire life. Not in an AA kind of way. More like a radical revamping of priorities�you know, like those people who go on Dr. Phil and get skinny because they make peace with their inner fat person by not drinking six cans of Mountain Dew every day and are then rewarded for their hard work with an extreme makeover. Yeah, kind of like that.
Whatever I used to think about no longer matters. What matters now is if Finn has peed on the lawn (very good) or if he has peed on the carpeting (very bad). I find myself saying things like, �Did you go potty? Gooood potty!� I should buy stock in Nature�s Miracle. [If you don�t know, don�t ask.] Instead of having a drink with friends after work, I leave at 5:00 and sit in rush-hour traffic calculating the hours and minutes it has been since he has been let out of his kennel to pee. What if he�s howling and trying desperately not to pee in his kennel and this brake-riding bastard is holding me up for the few seriously golden seconds I need to unlock the door and run the dog to the lawn?
There are several things Finn and I are working on. The most important thing is establishing that I am not a sheep. My jeans, tennis shoes, and hair are not, in fact, wool. Finn is having a hard time with this one. When we go on walks, he barks at my feet and hangs from my jeans by his razor-sharp teeth. Sometimes he hits flesh. This really isn�t an acceptable way to demonstrate appreciation for the four walks the little wildebeest gets every day.
According to the dog-training books and the dog trainer herself, I should not use the word no Instead, I say uh uh. Uh-uh to doing doughnuts wildly when I�m preparing some sort of treat for him. Uh-uh to tearing large strips of bark from the tree in our yard. Uh-uh to eating flowers, berries, cigarette butts, bugs of any kind (unless they�re in the house�then, by all means, eat them), paper, rubber bands, shoes (god help that dog if he eats my good shoes), and pajamas (especially while they�re being worn).Uh-uh to barking at me for food. Uh-uh to yanking on the leash like a crazed maniac just because another dog barks at you. Uh-uh to sniffing the carpeting and acting sketchy�like you�re going to pee in the house. Uh-uh. The sound of an eternal hiccup. Give me a break.
I have also established that when I meet a suitable wacky-yet-responsible man and we decide to procreate, the offspring will not be left unattended with my parents for any amount of time. Last Friday, I left Finn with my parents for four measly hours. You�d think two highly successful, good-natured, fun-loving, grown people would be decent dogsitters. Well, you thought wrong. You thought very wrong. First, let�s agree that I�m not (nor will I ever be) that person who obsesses over how cute her dog looks in a Halloween costume. Not me. I believe in structure. I believe in obedience training. I believe in consistency. And my parents have riddled my beliefs with bullets in the shape of potted meat.
Apparently, within a matter of hours, Finn discovered my mother�s homemade dog food (left out for our family dog, Molly�a shih-tzu with a really sweet disposition who is in desperate need of doggy braces). He scarfed down a good � cup of food that is made of the following: lots, lots, lots of chicken, a few vegetables, wheatgrass, and some oats, grains, and various lentils. To a dog that has never been fed �people food� (except for the occasional sip of hard cider), this proved disastrous.
Combine this with my father�s idea to open a can of Vienna sausages, which he keeps around the house not because people eat them (we don�t�they�re disgusting and gelatinous), but because dogs do. He opened the can and fed Finn THREE entire miniature hot dogs. It was a recipe for digestive disaster, my friends. By the time I got to him four hours later, he was completely unfit as a human companion.
Of course, no one informed me of this. I had made an initial appointment with Finn�s new veterinarian, so I just picked the dog up and tossed him in the car. We were halfway there when I smelled something. Something awful. Something from the bowels of hell. I had never experienced such a thing, but I�m telling you, my parents gave my dog gas. Bad gas. The kind of gas that fraternity brothers pray for during pledge week. The kind of gas that couldn�t possibly come from a 10�-pound puppy. (By the way, the fat bastard has gained three-and-a-half pounds in two weeks.) There was no way around it: Finn was ripe.
So, �atomic dog� and I had no choice but to brave the vet�s office. I had to wait in line behind three other appointments with my farting dog. I had to keep saying, �Boy, I wonder what they fed you! You�re a stinky little dog!� . . . and similar things. Then, I had to endure a thirty-minute session with the vet (a handsome, thirty-something) while smiling and pretending that I didn�t want to throw up in my own mouth. He was very professional about the whole thing, but I know he thought I was just blaming the �problem� on the dog. And how the hell do you sound like a sane person if you say, �I�m sorry my dog�s farts are so unbearable� or something to that effect? It just sounds certifiable.
Ahh, the joys of pet ownership. . . .
