lost dog

Dilla went missing yesterday.

Ho hum.

Where we live, on Mars, there are no fences, but the dogs are obedient enough that if you open the door and let them out, they'll stay on our property. Most of the time.

Dilla, age 2, is technically no longer a puppy. But she's still a young dog, so I guess she's hovering in teenage territory. Therefore, while she is responsive and able to be reasoned with, she still tests boundaries like a mother scratcher, and consequently makes me seriously regret pet ownership.

So yesterday, like other instances, Dilla exited the house, dilly-dallied for a minute, and then went to roost on our landlord Steve's tomato field, still snow-covered but undoubtedly redolent in the scent of deer and woodchuck. That's her boxed wine right there.

After about 40 minutes of her not returning, I put June in her bouncy seat, locked her in tight, and then started shouting Dilla's name out various doors.

"Mother-effing effing mutt," I'd mutter after she didn't reappear, keeping my Lenten promise, then turn to smile at my gurgling daughter. "Screw that freaking dog."

The poor dogs. I've been sort of a deadbeat caretaker since June was born. I remember reading all this preemptive psychology about how postpartum women tend to have trouble showing affection for their partners, given they spend all day in a very physical relationship with their baby. I didn't experience that. I relished hugging Greg at the end of the day and being cuddled as opposed to the other way around. I would have loved to have read something that said, "You might be able to snuggle with your husband, but in turn you might find great catharsis in verbally abusing your pets."

Dingdingdingdingding.

Anyone who has met these dogs knows how good they are. Sweet, obedient, mellow (mostly) and incredibly gentle and loving with June. But when you're a winter shut-in and all they do is follow you around begging for food and love, and emit hair in cartoonish puffs at every turn, one might see where I start to go a little nuts.

It's the little things that have driven me bonkers with them. The way Dilla cannot lie down without flailing into a wall and allowing her dead weight to fall to the floor in a nap-busting thud. Or how she manages to fall asleep in the most oft-traveled corridors of our downstairs. Or when either or both are gassy. Or the Sisyphian challenge of staying on top of their shedding. Or how Gypsy insists on licking Dilla's empty bowl, pushing it around the kitchen in stoned hope of kibble magically appearing in its drool-smeared confines. That's usually met with a, "Gypsy? Seriously?" which prompts him to look super guilty, pupils dilated from his phenobarbital high, and slink off to pout.

I can just imagine folks reading this and thinking, "Jesus Christ, what's wrong with this woman? They're just dogs." You're right, folks. They are just dogs, doing what dogs do. But a loooong New Hampshire winter stuck indoors and a priority shift has made me more of a jerk than I was four months ago. So there.

Greg has laughed, and stifled some judgment, when he hears me interacting with our brood:

"HI JUNIE! HOW'S MY SWEET BABY?! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH YOU WONDERFUL LITTLE GIRL!"

Then the falsetto drops several octaves to a demonic growl, brows furrow, shoulders hunch in anger, eyes blacken.

"DILLA! SHUT THE F*** UP!"

Don't get me wrong, I love my dogs, I really do. On the purely practical side, I'm easily spooked when alone, so having them around puts me at ease considerably, especially those nights where Greg works late and I've plotted our escape from backwoods cannibals through June's room, into the barn and out the back. Dilla will start barking if she hears something in Vermont, so I've always got one foot out the door and the other on a banana peel.

If actual backwoods cannibals were to actually break in, the dogs would quickly acquiesce and give them the licking of a lifetime. Ah well.

But these are a couple of sweet, sweet animals. Gypsy's been Greg's dog and companion for nine years, a duration longer than a whole lot of marriages. Dilla's the newer addition, but has proven to be affectionate, smart, curious and protective, especially of me and June. It's humbling when I think or what an arsehole I've been to these poor little dudes. I tell them to get the hell out of my face, they look at me with sad eyes, and then the obediently oblige.

Ouch.

About two weeks ago, I was getting June ready for bed, rocking her and nursing her toward a deep sleep. The dogs aren't allowed in her room in order to spare her things from a canvassing of coarse, canine hair, but Dilla stuck her head in to see what was going on. I didn't shoo her out for once, so she entered quietly, sniffing June's toys and eventually finding purchase near my feet. She watched me sing to my daughter, tail wagging, eyes illuminated and with a real look of doggie joy to her. My heart broke a little, thinking about how I had spent the day resenting her presence as I was trying to devote all my time and love to this baby. Dilla just wants to be part of the family, I thought. Ease up, Kerry.

And just like that, she got up and headed for the door, without me having to kick her out. Impressed with her intuition, I said, "Dilla! Good dog! Good dog!" Clearly excited by the compliment, she came puttering back in, tail wagging so violently it hit June's exersaucer and sent a discordant orchestra of bells and jangles into our peaceful ritual. June startled.

I felt myself tense up as Dilla parked herself by June's playmat, back leg lifting and scratching violently at the feather boa of fur she grows around her head in winter. I watched a blizzard of black hair tickle each one of June's toys, many which spend significant amounts of time in my baby's mouth.

"DILLA! UGH, DILLA! GO! NO, BAD DOG! LEAVE! Uh, please?"

At this point June's eyes were open and she was looking at me like, "Do you mind? I'm trying to enjoy a meal here."

So much for that.

I didn't grow up with pets. There was a very literal rule about it in my house as a kid: people in, animals out. It didn't matter if it was a chipmunk hoarding acorns in a bureau in the attic, a skunk meeting its demise in the chimney, or a dog crapping on the kitchen floor. In the Leonard house, four-legged creatures need not apply.

But it didn't end with the legged varieties. When I was about 10 I won 13 goldfish at a local fair. They were my first pets and I joyfully dumped the Ziplock baggies full of stunned fishies into a glass serving bowl, relishing my water-logged harem. Not four hours later, my dad, in disgust, flushed the entire lot down the toilet after convincing me that they would not only survive the trauma of our 100-year-old septic system, but go on to grow, thrive and multiply in the great fishbowl that was Lake Michigan. I recall standing above the toilet, stomach in knots, bidding my adieus.

"We'll meet again," I thought, imagining a "Splash"-esque reunion the following summer at Tower Road Beach. It wasn't to be.

In fact, my dad has long joked that he wants to start a business called "Pet Assassins." Have a gerbil you don't want anymore? Give P.A. a call and they can paint some rubber tire treads on Fluffy that will distract everyone from the small caliber bullet hole in his head. And for those looking at this in disgust, it's just a joke. He is not capable of harming animals. Someday I'll write about the bird who got into our basement and had to be released as proof. Oh wait a sec, there was that instance with the mouse and the blowgun dart... never mind.

Point being, I always loved dogs but I never had them, so the little things that dogs do I'm still figuring out. It's funny to think that June will have this experience of growing up with these two. I often wonder what she's thinking when she sees them, these ambling, salivating, fur-bearing quadrupedes -- but she probably looks at them the same way she looks at us. We've always been here so she doesn't know differently.

And yesterday, when Dilla returned home, sitting by the back door with the weight of her conscience hanging her head low, I let her in and admonished her for being a jerk. I then picked June up from her bouncy seat and brought her to the couch to feed her. Dilla approached to give the baby a sniff.

June squealed in delight.