The Dog

Everyone should have a creature who loves them as much as Buster loves me. This morning he whined at our door and woke us up, which was fine and made sense, since it was after 8:30 and we certainly prefer him coming to ask to be let out to decorating the carpet and he probably had to go pretty bad by then. I came downstairs and let him out, then went back upstairs to put on some sweats and slippers. The kids let him back in and he bounded back upstairs. Ryan was going back downstairs by then, but he came in demanded attention from me, so I had to sit down for a minute and rub his head and tell him he was a good boy before I changed my clothes. Then he sat at the top of the stairs waiting impatiently for me to come with him, went downstairs just ahead of me, looking back no fewer than three times to make sure I was following, then sat and waited for me on the couch, ears perked and looking somewhat forlorn while I made coffee. Now he is settled in against my thigh here on the couch and I really don't have the slightest doubt he would stay here all day, without moving, if I didn't move either. I find this all a bit weird because it seems like he's become somewhat clingier lately for not apparent reason. I mean, I know I'm his favorite -- there has been no doubt in my mind since the incident where he stole several pairs of my underpants out of the dirty laundry pile I left on the floor and absconded to his bed with them -- but we've had him for nearly five years and he used to be able to go up and down the stairs without making sure I was right behind.

He drives me crazy and I complain about it him all the time, but geez, it's hard not to respond to this kind of devotion. Sure, he barks, and he has the worst breath in dog history, and he acts pathetic, and we can't take him anywhere, and in the last few days he's unloaded such lethal gas that I worried my eyelashes might be singed off, but he's cute and cuddly, and recently when I was bitching about him in a chat room, my friend Judy said "you know you love that little shit." Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.