Crazy Dog People

Next month our family will finally enter the world of dog owners. We’ve fought it off for many years but the war is over. I’ve lost.

I do love dogs. I’ve had a total of four dogs in my life. Chocolate (killed by a neighbor with a shotgun when he pooped in his yard one too many times), Smokey (a gorgeous Dalmatian who we gave up when we moved to Hawaii), Daisy (died of old age after a happy life) and Ringo (ditto).

The reason I pushed hard against dog ownership as an adult is two-fold. One- at least two of our four kids have bad allergies. Two- much more selfish… we have a nice home, and the thought of a dog fouling rugs, scratching wood and doors and other mischief is bothering me greatly.

We have a family tradition though- and that is when each child reaches 13 years old, they get to choose their hearts desire for their gift. Anything in the world (with certain rules and restrictions you can read about here).

L turned 13 in June, and her choice? A puppy.

We’ve all been warming to the idea. It took a couple months for L to choose the breed she wanted (Yorkie), and find the right breeder and puppy. We landed on a cutie earlier this month and the deposit has been paid. We pick up Bella (or Brooklyn, or Piper, or whatever other name L thinks about between now and then) later in November. I have prepared myself for the new family member. I am starting to even look forward to it.

Until just now.

I have been at Panera Bread outside of Indianapolis for 2 hours now getting work done while waiting for my first film of the day to start. I’m attending the Heartland Film Festival as part of my work for Sony and have a few hours to kill before the “work” day begins.

For 90 minutes of that two hours I have been treated to a NON-STOP barrage of chit-chat between a mother (appears to be in her fifties) and her daughter (mid-twenties) about their dogs. It’s nauseating. I use the present tense because ITS STILL GOING ON AS I’M WRITING.

I now know the following about these two ladies dogs: diet, medical conditions, medical treatment, other dogs in the neighborhood (by name) they like to play with, toys, tv shows they like, clothing, what mom and daughter did (with their dogs) on vacation this summer, where the dogs sleep, what they do during the day, how excited they are when their respective owners get home, the condition of their fur and teeth, how cute they are in the morning, where they sleep (“she’s so cute…she crawls up under the electric blanket between my legs and licks my knees, blah, blah, blah”). The attached photo was JUST taken showing these two going at it with this blog entry being written on the screen to the right.

I’m going insane.

A warning to L and my lovely wife Michelle- if you turn into these two ladies I’m going to build a guest house on our land and move in there.