TomFlannery.com

My dog is cooler than your dog. That’s pretty clear to me.

If you have a dog and don’t think he or she is cooler than my dog you probably don’t deserve a dog.

On the humanity scale, dogs are clearly number one….followed by an assortment of other animals and a few inanimate objects (like recliners and old boom-boxes). Human beings show up eventually…..somewhere in the 20s, unless they serve in Congress, in which they drop even lower.

Max is my dog. But of course he has many names. Maxwell. Mister P (figure it out). Sir Paddington. The list goes on and on. He’s a Shih Tzu, our 3rd of that breed in a row. Kiko was first, my best friend and confidante for over a dozen years. Irreplaceable. She was followed by Abbey, the most perfect living thing ever conjured up by Deity or Darwinism. Losing them both was like losing the rain.

Needless to say, Max had large paws to fill.

Max is our first boy dog….which was a bit of a learning curve. Even though we relieved him of his package early, he still humps himself to death at times on just about anything he can mount, his dog bed being his favorite partner. He also pees all over when he gets excited, which means that if you’ve visited my house in the last year or so he’s probably pissed all over your pant leg. Despite our best efforts, he continues to go outside first thing in the morning to pee, and then come back inside to take a dump on his pee-pad. At least he’s consistent, so we just roll with it. Outdoor potty training kept getting derailed by wind swept leaves, which distracted Max the same way a howitzer might distract a golfer. And he developed a strange liking for mulch, which he’d eat constantly and then vomit back up in a dark area of the house where we’d be sure not to see it before we stepped in it.

Abbey and Kiko were filled with self-confidence. They knew they were the shit, and didn’t feel the need to remind you every 6 seconds that they were in the room. Max, like most adolescent males, has paper-thin self-confidence, and thus craves love and attention, every minute of the day. So he bounces from room to room, chair to couch to bed, up and down the steps when the girls are home (and even if they’re not…..he likes to continuously check to make sure), demanding validation. He wants to give kisses. He wants to clutch one of his many toys in his mouth and have you chase him around the house. Endlessly. In a well worn loop from the living room….into the dining room….and then back again. And if you can’t catch up he’ll stop and wait for you. And where Abbey and Kiko would gladly cuddle in your lap for hours at at time, Max, who has the attention span of a piece of lint, keeps forgetting why he’s there, and must jump off and explore. In case he’s missing something. And he wants you to come with him.

In the mornings when I leave for work and leave him alone, he deflates instantly…..and will stare at me through the bottom windows of the front door, like a condemned prisoner who never got the expected call from the governor.

But all is forgiven when I arrive home in the evenings, when he greets me with so much love I feel his heart might burst.

And isn’t that what it’s all about? Our dogs….they demand nothing of us. They simply want to love. Theirs is a world of wonder….noises and toys and chasing leaves and finding the exact spot in the morning where the sun streams in and bathes the floor so they can lay there and feel its warmth. If only until it moves on. So they will too….to the next adventure. Always wanting to share it with you. With us. And when we’re down…..they can sense it. You cannot convince me otherwise. Which is why on normal nights I might feel Max nuzzling by my feet in the bed….but when my eyes are wide open with worry and my heart is beating out of my chest, I notice him making his way closer. Towards my heart.

In a bit..

–tf