Barking Up The Wrong Tree

[Our idiot dog, Bob the Beagle, escaped from the yard – again – last night and enjoyed a 2-hour romp around the neighborhood.  I passed the time driving 5 mph down every street in southeast Wichita Falls, while the kids alternated between panicked worry and television watching.

Eventually, Bob returned on his own, no doubt motivated by the fact that he was freezing his nuts (or what passes for nuts when you’ve been neutered) off.

Anyway, it reminded me of this story I wrote about seven years ago, just a few weeks before we got Bob.  I was right then – and I’m right now.]

Barking Up The Wrong Tree 

My kids want a dog.

They want a dog.  They want a dog.  Ohmigod, they want a dog.

They want this dog.  They want that dog.  They want your dog.

They pray for dogs.  Wish all day for dogs.  They dream of dogs.  They scheme for dogs.

Sorry, kids.  You can’t have a dog.

That’s right.  They can’t have a dog.  They just can’t.  There are a number of reasons why they can’t have a dog, several of which are even true.  But mostly they can’t have a dog because I don’t want a dog.

And believe me, if we get a dog, it will be my dog.  Oh sure, the kids will love it and hug it and ride it like a pony if they possibly can.  But the burdens, uncertainties and perils of dog ownership will most assuredly be mine.  And I don’t want them.

It’s nothing against dogs, OK?  Dogs are, I’m told, loving and loyal creatures.  But they are loud and leaky creatures, as well.  They’re also demanding, dependent and destructive. And they’re always getting sick, hungry or lost.

They’re like children without the tax benefits.  And I have enough children right now, thank you very much.  And I can’t even get all of them to go on the paper.

Regardless, they want a dog.  In fact, it appears they want several.  They say they want a little dog, a big dog, a police dog and a “teeny-tiny” dog.  And, near as I can tell, all of these dogs will be named “Beethoven,” after the Saint Bernard from the movie of the same name.

It’s the twins, mostly, making these demands.  Mary and Harper are 5 and, by my math, have wanted a dog for a combined 47 years.  Our oldest, Margaret, is 10 and has been denied a dog enough to have given up on the idea.  Now, she wants a horse.

Almost-3-year-old Jack says he wants a dog, too.  But then, he also says he wants a gun and his own car, so he has some credibility problems.

For our part, my wife and I have been uniformly anti-dog for some time.  Our current home has no legitimate backyard, so we’ve been telling the kids since we moved in that we’d get a dog at our next house –a promise we fully intend to keep to the extent that we thought they’d forget we ever made it.

Well, by the time you read this, we will have moved into our next house.  It has a beautiful, spacious, fenced-in backyard – a backyard so nice our landlord has insisted, in writing, that we keep it dog-free for the duration of our stay.

The kids have not responded favorably to the news.

I understand their disappointment.  I’m not overwhelmingly concerned with it, but I understand it.

Part of the problem here is that I’ve just never been a pet person.  We had pets growing up, most notably our beagles Samson and Delilah and our calico cat Eloise.  All three pets came to us about the same time, when I was about 10.

The dogs were outside pets and spent their entire time here on this earth trying to get inside.  Probably because that’s where the people were.  Oh sure, we kids loved them and hugged them and once tried to convince Eloise to ride them like ponies, but that was only on those rare occasions that we actually spent time with them.

Speaking for myself, I was always pretty much indifferent to our pets.  That is to say, I enjoyed their company, but could live without it.

That doesn’t make me a bad person.  It’s just one of those things, one of the many unfortunate situations that, as a parent, I have to work through on my own.  So, in keeping with the political tenor of the day, I’ve decided to blame Hollywood.

I’m serious.  It isn’t my fault.  It’s those damnable, amoral, Tinseltown-types.  Their constant barrage of dog-related movies and television shows has planted the seeds of my dog destruction in my kids’ impressionable minds.

The entertainment industry inundates our children with joyful, courageous and, at times, talking dogs.  From Snoopy to Scooby-Doo, from Beethoven’s 2^nd to K-9 to 101 Dalmations, it’s dogs, dogs, dogs as far as the eye can see.

There’s Clifford the Big Red Dog, Balto, Air Bud, Snow Dogs and My Dog Skip – a never-ending Technicolor litter of ridiculously happy dogs.  And let’s not forget Blue’s Clues – in which Steve’s brother Joe is constantly asking the kids, “Have you seen my puppy, Blue?”

No, Joe.  We haven’t.  And, frankly, we’re tired of looking for it.  Find your own dog.

I thought letting my kids watch “Where the Red Fern Grows,” with its infinitely tragic scenes of death – both human and canine – might cure them of their dog lust.  But no such luck.

It’s time to bring out the big guns.

It’s time for “Old Yeller.”

 And when it gets to that part where Old Yeller gets sent to that great doghouse in the sky, they’ll get the message.

Not really.  I’d never do that.  That would be cruel.  How about this instead?

Maybe at our next house, kids.