A friend asked me the other day “Why do people have dogs?”. She doesn’t like dogs, and when I jokingly reminded her of this she replied “I do like them, I just don’t want them near, or touching me”.*
I get that. Dogs are generally filthy, wet, sharp nailed, muddied creatures of mass destruction.
I mean, my once cream couches look about a million years old and my rug in my lounge is never ever straight. My dining room floors are constantly covered in swimming pool water and sand, and there’s hair on pretty much everything.
If I had a nice standing floor lamp, it is long gone, and most of my wooden furniture has Boston terrier sized bit marks in the legs. My Persian carpet is missing a large chunk and my shower is always filled with tell-tale brown footprints.
New linen? Forget about it – anything lighter than black looks dirty within minutes, and the more expensive the throw, the more chance there is of a crusty piece of dog poo being stuck to it.
Love your garden? Learn to love it a little less – anything even vaguely expensive gets eaten or chewed. Case in point – A year ago my husband’s Granny passed away, and as a token of sympathy my folks bought us a Wild Olive tree to plant in our garden. The dogs took one look at the newest flora addition and decided it was an enemy that needed abolishing – needless to say they left us with a twig. Twig was subsequently replanted and dubbed ‘Big Granny’. Twig turned into longer twig which turned into leaf which then turned into something resembling a very small, happy and thriving tree. On Saturday, our new gardener assumed it was a failing weed, pulled it out, and threw it away.
Dogs take up your time and dogs take up your money. It’s very common for us to leave a function early to go home and feed the dogs, but where we can the dogs come along and gate crash dinner parties and braais. My boy dog has even weed in someone else’s house (you can immediately tell who the dog lover is by the way they react when your “I’msosorrymystupidfuckingdogjustpissedinyourkitchenandIswearheneverdoesthis” comment gets met with a “Shame look how remorseful he looks, he didn’t mean it, he was so excited, here Rupert, have a treat”.
Thank god for friends like this. I’m talking about you “my dogs kiss you when your mouth’s open and you love it, Clair”.
When girl dog was 9 months old, she was bitten by a puff adder. In Fourways. We are hard-core like that. 10 days and 20 thousand rand later we had her home with us, somewhat battered and missing a good chunk of knee, but she was home. For the 10 days she was in hospital we visited her every day – taking turns doing morning and evening shifts. At one low point, when we weren’t sure if she was going to make it, I sat with her on the floor of the vet, and she wrapped her limp weak body around mine, drip tubes, bandages and all. She had no control of her body and by the end of it I was covered in urine and vomit. All over my work clothes. You know what, I didn’t care. All I wanted was for my little girl to get better. When she eventually was released, we built her a fort bed in the bedroom and slept with her there (on the floor) for 2 nights to make sure she stayed breathing.
A few nights ago, I was having a very bad night. Sadness weighed upon me like a ton of bricks and nothing could get me out of my funk. Until my 2 hounds, who never (despite all evidence to the contrary) sleep on the bed, wormed their way out of their bed into mine, and lay with me for the entire night. The more I cried, the closer they spooned against me, until at one point I had Boston fart touching my nose and another Boston snore reverberating against my back. Dogs know, they just know.
When I get home, and I could have been gone anywhere from 5 minutes to 8 hours, there they are practically doing somersaults in the driveway. They jump up, scratch my car and try and absorb every part of me. They do this every single time they see me. Now you tell me, what human is ever that enthusiastic?
A few other reasons dogs are just so awful:
They are very needy.
They are messy drunks
They are never happy to see you
They take up all the duvet
They are absolute sluts.
They always use your things
They are very bad at roadtrips
They are awful with children
And even worse with other dogs…
They’re not terribly well read
They can never pose nicely for a photo
And they are so unfeminine
Dogs are so nosey. Jeez.
And SO needy!
They’re terribly lazy
Not terribly good at hide ‘n seek
They don’t look good in anything.
They can never just pose nicely for a photo
They hate extra mural activites
And group photos? They want NONE of that!
They despise shower time
In fact, they’re hardly pat of the family at all.
But in all seriousness, my absolute worst thing about dogs? It’s that I don’t have more of them.
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*Disclaimer, I in no way hold any grudges against my friend for not liking dogs. I don’t like many things, including people who suck their toothbrushes and centipedes, but our differences are what make us unique and lovely, don’t you think?
PPS – I would however hold a grudge against a non-dog lover who owns dogs. It’s one of my pet peeves. But that’s a whole other story.
