Happy National Crappy Dog Day
So yesterday was National Dog Day or some variation of that title. Scrolling through Facebook, I was bombarded with pictures of my friends’ cute, furry, well-mannered pups. You may have posted a photo of your own dog or gaggle of dogs. And to that I say, “Good for you!” I’m truly happy that you have dogs worthy of sharing on such an auspicious occasion.
I was not one of those celebrating. I chose instead to sit this one out.
Do I love my dogs? Of course. Do I currently like my dogs?
Not so much.
I know I post about my dogs a lot. I know you are probably sick to death of hearing about their neuroses and bad behavior.
But, friends, it’s because, well, they’re just a-holes a lot of the time. Don’t get me wrong–I love my little a-holes. But I can’t deny their a-holeness. It’s there in all its glory.
Instead of posting pictures of my cute, innocent dogs, I will instead post a picture of these new curtains I love. Well–loved.
How cute are these?
Look–the ones on the outside windows even have cute little birds on them. I have a thing for birds.
Curtains on this window have been my nemesis, not because of any fault of the curtains, but because this window is so wide, and it’s been hard to find a curtain rod long enough. Then there’s the fact that my dog stalks this window because it faces the street and the duplexes across the street as well as the sidewalk that gets a lot of foot traffic. No matter how many times Otto has seen a human or another dog, it’s like it’s the first time, and he goes absolutely crazy. Barking, clawing at the window–and most of the time pulling down the curtains that have been on a precariously balanced curtain rod.
So when I was up in the middle of the night last week (like I am now. Hello 2:17 a.m.!), I had this brilliant idea. Why have I been trying to fight with long curtain rods that fall off in the middle every time a dog brushes by it or someone breathes a little too hard? Why don’t I get tension rods and get curtains for each of the five individual windows?
So off I went to several stores to find the right size of tension rods and curtains that would work. It wasn’t the easiest job as I didn’t want to spend a fortune, but I did “splurge for me” on curtains for the end that were $25 apiece at World Market. The birds were just subtle and sweet enough to not be overpowering, and I loved the touch of color.
I went home and got them all put up and was pretty darn proud of myself. I even bought some pom-pom rickrack to tie the middle curtains for a little flair. (Watch out Joanna Gaines–I’m coming for you.)
As you can imagine by now, this story does not have a happy ending.
Yesterday I came home from work to find the curtain at Otto’s favorite window to stalk on the ground. “Great,” I said. (Actually, “You little shit,” I said.) He had pulled it down I’m sure because a person had dared to walk past our house. Then I saw what had probably provoked him. There was a dog that looked like it was part Rottweiler running loose outside our house. Fantastic.
So I went to pick up the tension rod and curtain and realized that curtain would not be going back up. In his fury to not be able to get outside at that dog (which he would’ve done NOTHING to had he actually gotten outside except tried to sniff its butt), he had shredded the curtain.
SHREDDED it.
So my cute little bird curtains are no more. Because I can’t just have one up, so I have to take the other one down too. I gave up and ordered valances for the end windows instead because at least the dog can’t reach those. Will it allow anyone to see inside our living room at all hours? Yes. Will it probably look dumb? Yes.
Stupid dog.
So besides that and the fact that both dogs have been HORRIBLE this week about just peeing on the hardwood floors whenever and wherever the feel like it (and only Herky has an actual medical condition that gives him somewhat of a free pass), I chose to not celebrate National Dog Day.
One of our friends has two German Wirehaired Pointers, same breed as Otto, and posted a picture of one of them on Facebook. “How come their dog doesn’t look all disheveled like ours?” I asked my husband.
“Oh, he probably lets them give him baths and stuff,” I said.
Even though Otto loves to swim in the lake, try to get him in the shower and put shampoo on him and he turns into a 75-pound bucking bronco with the strength of three elephants. So I guess his lake swims are his baths, which is really gross I know and probably warrants me getting turned in to the Humane Society or something.
The best is when he not only has had a lake-water bath but then goes exploring in his favorite little grove of trees and weeds and comes out with burrs all over his fur, which he does NOT appreciate you trying to pull off, so most of them just stay.
I’m pretty sure he’s ready for the dog show circuit. Best of Show, here we come.
You may be reading this and thinking, “Why don’t they just put him in a crate while they’re gone?” and “Why don’t they just train him to sit in the shower and get bathed properly?”
The answer is–because we obviously suck as dog parents. No dog we’ve ever had has liked to go in the crate. And when I say they don’t like it, I mean they literally find a way to break through and escape, even if it means going into full-on Incredible Hulk mode and breaking through screwed on plastic or bending steel.
I wish I were exaggerating.
I don’t know what it is that we do wrong, but we manage to do it wrong with every dog that we bring home. Otto will go in his outside kennel, but with temperatures in the high 90s this week, we don’t like to be worse dog parents than we already are.
So the moral to this story is…if you posted a picture of your dogs for National Dog Day, good for you. I’m happy that you have dogs worthy of such an honor.
I’m still bitter about my curtains and stepping in puddles of pee, so sweet pictures of my pooches will not be gracing my Facebook feed for a while.
I’m just glad I’m not going to be here in the morning on the first day of school when Otto discovers that we now have a bus stop DIRECTLY ACROSS THE STREET FROM OUR FRONT WINDOW. Seriously, he’s going to be a freaking MESS barking at those poor kids with their first-day-of-school outfits and brand-spanking-new backpacks. So I guess it’s a good thing my beloved curtain was already shredded. That’s the window he frequents, so let’s just hope he doesn’t decide to tear all of the other curtains down in his ire that children would DARE stand across the street from him. (And again, he barks like he’s some maniacal attack dog but if he would actually get outside he would just run up and beg for them to pet him. I don’t get it.)
Maybe I’ll post pictures of my stupid valances when I get them up. With my luck, Otto will find a way to scale the window and tear those down too. Pretty soon I’m just going to have a naked picture window without even a hint of privacy.
Oh well. It’s worth it to have pets, right? They’re just like family, right? You can’t get rid of them just because they suck sometimes. Right?!
I’m going to make my own holiday. National Crappy Dog Day. Everyone can post pictures of crappy things their dogs have done, or just pictures of them looking like little a-holes. I just hope I wouldn’t be the only one participating…