Unpupular

Bear and I are what I would call "reluctant pet owners." By that, I mean that while we certainly like animals just fine, we were not entirely convinced that we needed any living under our roof with us...but then Catey-Pup showed up and adopted us, and before we knew it, we became Petco Pals members whose every belonging is covered with dog hair. Go figure.

Cate is not without her charms; in fact, her cuteness and her clever strategy of winning over Keira first were the main reasons we opted to keep her in the first place. Note how they've pooled their resources in this pic: Blankie and Kong, side-by-side. That's friendship.


She's occasionally good for a laugh, such as when we got her fixed and I put a onesie on her in a vain attempt to prevent her from licking the stitches:

She never tires of chasing her bone up and down our long-arse hallway, now known as The Dog Run (and often the Cub Run, as Keira likes to run back and forth alongside her):

And she's been relatively gentle and tolerant of our newest arrival:


On the other hand--and you knew there was another hand coming, didn't you?--I will speak for myself in saying that I've come to regard Cate mostly as a nuisance. Let me count the ways:

1) She is what our vet refers to as "a high-energy, high-maintenance dog." She loves to play, but gets wild very quickly, and she wants to turn every game of fetch into a game of tug-of-war, which is annoying when you've set aside 10 minutes to get some of her energy out before attending to two young children and 85 other things that need to get done.

2) She is a food stalker, and knows exactly who the messiest eaters in the house are; in fact, I wouldn't be surprised to find hidden beneath her dog-bed a list, ranking us in order of Most to Least Likely to Drop Something Delicious on the Floor. I'm sure this is normal dog behavior, but it is annoying nonetheless.

3) She needs a hobby. Again, this is probably normal dog behavior--for bored, somewhat neglected dogs, at least--but she follows me everywhere, all day long. If I were a cartoonist, I'd draw a picture of me with Ellie attached at the breast, Keira yanking on my pants leg (perhaps with a "C'n I use a token and watch a Kiwi show?" speech bubble over her head), and Cate right between my feet, because that's about how it is sometimes. Motherhood is highly rewarding and enjoyable, so I don't mind the first two parts of that equation, but that third part annoys the bejeezus out of me, and all the rawhide bones, peanut butter-filled Kongs, and games of fetch in the world won't cure it. Perhaps she could start a dog blog, and vent about all the ways in which I annoy her on a daily basis:

Item One: Not enough petting.
Item Two: Not enough food-dropping.
Item Three: Take me out for a walk, you lazy &$%#!!!

That could probably keep her busy for a while...

4) She is a goat trapped in a dog's body, a disorder which recently cost us $400. Way back when we took her in for her first checkup at the vet, she earned us a scolding by vomiting up an array of random items: painter's tape, bits of dog toys, rubber bands, scraps of paper, and I-don't-even-remember-what-else. Since then, she's developed an affinity for eating socks, and has, in the 1.5 years that we've known her, probably regurgitated (or otherwise, er, eliminated) an even dozen of them. Our attempts to patrol the floors have been futile, with two small children working against us nonstop.

Last week, she greeted me at 7am one morning by ralphing up yet another one, and then had an upset stomach for a couple of days afterward, so we had to take her to the vet and have her X-rayed to make sure she didn't have an obstruction. Fortunately, she didn't, because that surgery would've run us $2,000-$3,000 and resulted in an eBay posting entitled DOG WITH JUNK IN HER BELLY, FREE O.B.O.!

Anyway, after the sock misadventure, I had a nice, long chat with the vet about how we can keep her from eating everything in sight, and/or from behaving like a total spaz half the time. His response, in a nutshell, was a) more exercise and b) dog training. Since "finding more time and attention for Catey-Pup" was already on my 2010 To-Do List, I figured I might as well tackle that one straight away and resolve to get her out for walks every day (or as close to it as humanly possible). Hey, maybe I'd even accidentally get a little exercise myself!

Why hadn't this been happening already? I have a long list of excuses: Cate's inability to walk more than 2 steps without bumping into the stroller, Keira throwing fits about riding in said stroller yet walking too slowly for Cate to get anything resembling exercise, Ellie refusing to wear sunglasses or a hat and then becoming enraged when the sun hits her face....stuff like that. Our last attempt culminated in Keira declaring wearily before we even hit the corner that "this is a far-away land, Mom," and me trudging all of us back to the house in defeat.

But behold, a simple solution: the wagon!

Pulling that sucker behind me up and down the hills in our neighborhood definitely counts as a workout for me, AND it eliminates the problem of Cate bumping into the Cub transport module because she's trotting happily--even obediently, most of the time!--ahead of me.

Please be sure to mention, when you nominate me for Pet Owner of the Year, that it only took me 1.5 years to bust out a wagon and resolve to walk my dog daily. I'll expect my award any day now...