Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Eight Signs That You Are A Little Over-Obsessed With Your Dog

It appears that there are two kinds of people in this world: people who think that dogs exude all that is good in life (hope, loyalty, patience, and of course, love) and those that just haven’t met the right dogs yet. In fact, canine appreciation may be so deeply engrained in human nature that it helps us to better define the essence of what humanity truly is. Apparently Gandhi would agree, as a t-shirt I recently saw (probably not the most reliable source of information, but you must admit that many of Gandhi’s more profound thoughts do to tend to end up on t-shirts and bumper stickers) quoted him as stating, “The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” This rings of trueness. Even pop culture tells us that humans tend to predictably go ga-ga over dogs and similarly furry creatures. In one Star Trek episode, for example, the crew of Deep Space Nine travels back in time to capture a dangerous Klingon who has infiltrated the Enterprise disguised as a human. Although the crew expresses concern over how they will discover him, given that they know that he appears to be human in every way, fortunately he is easily found due to his distinct reaction to an animal. Whereas humans can’t help but fawn over a “Tribble” (a rapidly-breeding but adorable equivalent of a rodent), the Klingon is unable to repress his repulsion at the fuzzy-wuzzy animal, and aha, he is outted! Clearly, space-age humans, defined in this case by their appreciation of something cute and cuddly, would be dog-people.

So surely there is no crime in loving your pet, but is it possible that some people have become a little too obsessed with dogs? I am forced to reluctantly acknowledge that this is the case in our household. Below are some tips that may aid you in discovering whether you too are a complete sucker when in comes to pups:

1) You realize that you are spending more time and money on your dog’s medical care than on your own. Example: I have gone to a doctor’s office twice in the past two years. Cooper has gone to the vet five times. Sadly, the ratios aren’t much different when it comes to teeth-cleanings. (But I am happy to say that I have had more eye doctor appointments than the dog).

2) You believe that there can never be “too many” dog toys. The more dog toys the better. The dog likes his toys- no, he LOVES his toys. You love the dog and the dog loves his toys, so naturally you must spend outrageous amounts of money on designer toys that will eventually be slobbered upon, torn, or squeaked into a premature toy-death.

3) In an average day you spend more time talking to the dog than your spouse. True, it is sort of a one way conversation when it comes to the dog, but he happily curls his ears and wags his tail in delight when you talk to him. A spouse doesn’t do either of these things.

4) You can’t help but refer to the dog in a sing-songy baby-talk sort of way. He likes it. He curls his ears when you do this. He has an official name, but you tend to call him your ____________(insert name here)-y boopy bear. You would probably be horrified to hear yourself doing this, but still, you can’t help it. He is, after all, sooo cute.

5)99.9999% of the photos from your digital camera are of the dog.

6) You always seem to be covered in dog hair. You are so used to having dog hair on your clothes, on your socks, on your furniture, that you stop minding it. You notice that your close family and friends also seem to transporting hair from your dog on their clothes too. Not so surprising, as they may have sat on your couch, sat in your car or worked in your office, all places frequented by the dog. In some ways this is nice, like a badge that identifies all of your closest people (the honor of having persistent hair from Coopie sticking to you)...but then you realize that some of your friends’ friends have hair from your dog on their clothes too. At this point your forced to realize that the abundant amount of hair shed from your dog is somewhat disturbing. It is traveling in circles far beyond your own social networking.

7) In a moment when a young child, a son or daughter of your friends or relatives, does something excessively charming and cute, you announce that he/she reminds you of your dog. This is usually not taken well. Non-dog people should understand though, that this is the *highest* compliment a dog-owner can give. It is said with the utmost love.

8) On a day when you have quite a bit of work sitting on your desk, more work than you can possibly imagine getting through, you blissfully procrastinate by hacking into your husband’s blog to write an ode to how much you love the dog. I know, I know, it’s sad really...sort of depressing given how many deadlines are piling up. There’s only one thing to do to console one’s self in a case like this. Goodbye-I’m off to play with the dog.

1 comment:

Jaideep Nair said...

My dear wife, let this be a lesson to me to never use your laptop to blog and if I do, let it be a reminder that I need to log out everytime I use someone else's machine.