Another Dog?
My wife wants another dog.
The problem is that she’s a sucker for animals. One look at their furry faces and big, doe eyes, and she goes all gooey.
After years of being cat-only people, we got a puppy about five months ago. How hard could it be, we thought. It turns out that a dog is a completely different beast than a cat. That’s a terrible analogy. A different kettle of fish? That’ll work. Our dog, Mango, is super cute. She’s half black-lab and half “Potcake” (the Bahamian term for mutt). But we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.
Cats are quiet. Cats are polite. Cats are clean. Cats don’t consume an enormous amount of food. Cats want affection occasionally, but otherwise are quite happy to chill out by themselves and to stare at the wall.
Dogs are loud. Dogs are rude. dogs are filthy. Dogs eat you out of house and home. And dogs can’t get enough affection. If they could crawl into your abdomen to be closer to you, they would. And they’re destructive. We’ve lost BlackBerry chargers, pepper plants, shoes, bits of couch, and who knows what else.
The primary issue is that Mango is lonely. We’re at work all day, and while we do play with her and walk her when we’re home, we don’t do it ALL the time. So my wife is thinking of adopting a dog from the Humane Society so Mango has a playmate. I’m not sure I can handle it.