A Little Chaos in Life is Good for the Soul

the bear

This would not have worked had I been any older, younger or in any other stage of my life, because I’ve somehow equated puppy parenthood with the preamble to marriage, kids and divorcing my youthful twentysomething years. Yes, I’ve always enjoyed my share of playing fetch with a dog at a friend’s pad… that “haha, dumb dog” fake throw you do when the doggie does its double-take to see where that tennis ball landed – absolutely priceless. And yes, even though I usually winded up succumbing to the dog’s conditioning of throwing his ball, which he probably thought was priceless, that’s also where the fun stayed at the end of the day – at somebody else’s home. But to get a dog of my own? Seriously? 

Mind you, I can barely stand toddlers and the mere thought of training and entertaining somebody with the intellectual capacity of a three-year-old kid is rather vomit-inducing. What’s a dog gonna teach me anyway? Certainly, not xhtml, php or css. Then, there are maintenance costs to consider.  A quick survey from my dog owner friends quickly revealed that my wallet would likely be 50 Ulysses S. Grant hair strands thinner – after a couple of hundred bucks in health-related fixes and what-not – which roughly translates into dining out less once a month. That’s a 0-to-2 pro-con dog decision, at this point, with the cons clearly outweighing the benefits of dog ownership. So why does Shannon glare at the monitor, scanning dozens of dog offers on www.sacbee.com day after day, once I give her “the green light” of getting one?

To be honest, I can’t recall actively initiating the dog search, but I also have a hazed memory of not objecting to puppy parenthood. For whatever reason, I thought it’d be fun to risk all those con-factors, tossing them against the wall and witness the final outcome as sort of a pre-meditated mental hemorrhage. God knows the little guy would probably pee and poop in every vicinity of our home, but the pure enjoyment of a little chaos would probably excite me, if not drive me to the brink of insanity. Besides, working from home placed me in a comfortable position and the atmosphere definitely could use some new mojo… maybe even from a furry, four-legged friend.

Shannon shows me pictures of some West Highland Terrier puppies – that Cesar commercial dog – online and off we are to Oroville, out of all places.

A few months have passed by now that we’ve had our Westie, Beary White. He was definitely more than a handful the first two weeks, so much so that I had to second-guess myself of this new canine addition. But whenever I play back some of the puppy videos and reminisce about those times he was trying to dig through the kitchen linoleum, it makes me laugh. Whenever Shannon comes home from work, his tail wags like bonkers and it makes us both appreciate those simple things – yes, somebody did come home tonight, safe and sound. You just get this warm, fuzzy feeling inside that all dog lovers tell you about that your cynical self probably always doubts. And it’s true. That feeling is genuine. Seriously.

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