Dog People

Often as I go for my walk the energizer bunny trots right at my heels. Occasionally she runs ahead or lags behind if she finds something of interest. When she runs ahead and turns around to look back at me she reminds me of Bob from The Biggest Loser. It's as if her look tells me that I'm not pushing myself hard enough and to walk a little faster, will ya? Yesterday she ran a little ahead of me quite a bit. There's something about a little dog being able to go faster than me that's just enough incentive to try and catch up.

Last night the energizer bunny sat on the edge of dearest one's recliner and craned her neck for almost an hour waiting for him to come home from work. Every time she heard a vehicle she cocked her head and strained to see if it was him. In all fairness he was late and she knew it. Finally I phoned him to see how far from home he still was. Soon he was pulling into the yard and the energizer bunny did her happy-oh-so-happy-to-see-you dance. She howls like a coyote and nearly turns herself inside out when she sees him.

As we were going to sleep last night dearest one said that tonight he'd call and I could put it on speaker phone so she could hear his voice. As soon as he said that he muttered, "I'm not even 50 yet and look what I'm doing." We both chuckled. When we first got the energizer bunny friends of ours asked us if we were going to become one of those dog people. Visions of people treating their dogs like children and talking baby talk to them just about made me retch. Horrified, I say no as emphatically as I could.

And while we don't talk baby talk to the energizer bunny, we do talk to her (and honest to God she understands.) While we don't treat her like one of our kids I will concede that less than a year since she came into our house, we're well on our way to becoming dog people. And instead of that making me feel like a loser, it feels like I've found something well worth hanging on to.