By Megan Charles (original article link)
Images were taken by me (Megan Charles)
Initially, I had good intentions with wanting to blog daily about the adorable fluff placed in our care for ~30 days while my stepdaughter and her boyfriend were out of the country. I did. But life does get in the way — work, deadlines, the daily minutia, and the needs and neediness of a pup with separation anxiety.
I work at home, so it falls on me to be with her most days. I’m not used to having a living thing — other than plants — require my attention to sustain life. Orchids, cactuses, and succulents need little attention, some sun and water. I’ve found the less you mess with them, the better off they are. When I became a stepmother, my husband’s children were teenagers.
That’s not to say I don’t have common sense, but I liken some dogs to a toddler. They require way more attention, to be engaged and played with more often, and to be watched so they don’t eat something random they shouldn’t. And when they do sleep, you are so thankful you just let them. I’m not accustomed to this level of necessary neediness from anyone or anything.
In the short time we’ve had Bean, she’s been a delight and a terror. I love the snuggles, the Fraggle-fluff of her tail, and how, when she stretches, she does this cute yoga thing with her back legs. She points at squirrels, understands fetch, and gives crooked smiles. Still, I’m not used to some behaviors — mainly being woken from a deep sleep by a cold, wet nose or paw-punched in the face. Picking up dog poop is my least favorite task.
As I’m scribing this draft, it is after midnight, and she’s broken the silence with a sudden, earsplitting shrill bark because she senses someone or something outside. Sidebar, we’re surrounded by AirBnBs — it sucks. It is either a random AirBnB guest, one of the stray cats we feed, or the opossums and raccoons bulking up on the leftover meat cereal the cats didn’t eat.
Jarred, I step away from the laptop to leash her up for one last wee before bedtime. Doing this ensures she will sleep through the night for at least 7 hours without needing to go out again. It is dark, chilly, and spooky, with a half-moon haze in an otherwise starless black sky. We live downtown, so I’m not excited about standing in my tiny postage stamp of a yard waiting for her to piss on the grass. But, once I distract her from the million other smells she wants to investigate, she relieves herself quickly, and we march back inside.
We’re off to bed. We’ve learned not to bring toys, bones, or cardboard rolls to bed. It gears Bean up, not down. Yes, Bichon-poodle mixes are naturally high-strung. Who knew?
In the morning, my husband and I will rock paper scissors to see who gets to toss on random clothing and take Bean for her first walk of the day, aka her first poop. It seems we’re managing to alternate this unpleasant but necessary task.
When I lose and have to take her, I have no shame. In my abruptly woken with a cold, wet nose zombie-like state, I will don whatever hideous pair of baggy sweats I have nearby, a mismatched shirt, sneakers, jacket, and oversized sunglasses, and toss my locks into a messy bun.
On a positive note, no one is stupid enough to mess with or mug a woman willing to walk a hyper dog in the freezing dawn to gather its feces.
I’ve hit all of my activity goals since she’s been with us. I use an at-home workout membership regularly, but since taking on the dog, I only need to offset the copious amount of walking with weights training. I walk 2x a day, most days, to ensure she’s gotten more than enough activity to decrease the likelihood of near-bedtime zoomies and she no longer needs to use the pads in the house. Short of when it rains, she does everything outside. Yay!
A few days ago, I made an appointment to get her first proper grooming. They sheered off 3 lbs of hair and shaped her head into a stylish cotton ball. It took about two hours. Bean is now a Q-Tip with teeth.
My husband is an engineer. Engineers cannot help but have a project they can iterate. So, he designed and built what is essentially a throne platform for her doggie bed. It is at lap or pet level and sits equidistant between the two matching office desks we have in our downstairs living room. It is hollow, allowing for storage, and has grippy-textured steps.
Images are property of me, Megan Charles.
We realized our toys were unsuitable for a dog of her size and play style. She needed smaller, lightweight, easy-to-carry, durable ones without stuffing. So now she rotates between an octopus, a raccoon (with an exceedingly long tail), and a squeaky penguin. It is disturbing how much she loves to drag and carry something that looks like a lifeless, limp creature.