What My Dog Taught Me About Love, Life and Pooping

Gross title, I know….read the article and you’ll understand.

My post-divorce life has introduced me to life in an apartment complex. While it’s a far cry from my pre-divorce 8/4/2.5, 2,800sf existence, I have to say that I wouldn’t trade my current 982sf living arrangement for the world. I’m enjoying it for many reasons; the pool that I don’t have to take care of, 24/7 on-call maintenance to fix things like uncooperative garbage disposals and washing machines that forget to halt their water flow even after the cycle is over. I am blessed.

Perhaps what I’m loving the most about apartment life is the dog community. Except for Vet visits, my 10-pound rescue mutt had never had any exposure to other dogs before we moved here. Now, after a lot of socializing and slow introductions, she has her own little network of doggy friends that she gets to play with every day.

There is one dog in particular that my fur daughter has just absolutely fallen head over heels in love with. To protect his privacy, we’ll call him “Jim”. Jim is a handsome little guy, a purebred with lots of lineage. If Jim were human he would be wearing Vineyard Vines and speaking like Mr. Howell from Gilligan’s Island. Jim tolerates my dog (somewhat) but his true love is this other purebred dog that we’ll call, “Elizabeth” (yes, as in The Queen). Elizabeth’s human form would wear Lily Pulitzer dresses and tapered pearls and would conduct that subtle-yet-very-loud up and down gaze upon new acquaintances before introducing herself with outstretched finger tips, as “Bitsy.”

This has created quite the love triangle. Any time that the three dogs are at our onsite dog park together, the pitiful sight of my dog chasing Jim and Jim chasing Elizabeth breaks my heart. The only thing that makes my petty heart feel better is when “Leo” (the object of Elizabeth’s affection) on occasion joins them and Elizabeth starts to chase him. For some reason, seeing what I imagine to be a defeated look on Jim’s face, makes me feel better for my little girl. Doggy Karma’s a bitch, Jim.

Anyway, this morning I was walking my baby and she was just about to poop. I’m sorry, there’s no better word for it. So, she’s about to poop, but she sees Jim in her peripheral. She stops before she really starts and makes a beeline for her love. He’s alone and I suspect that she innately understands that her chances with him are better.

For the first time ever, Jim actually looks happy to see her. His tail is wagging and he’s running toward her. I think to myself, “WOW, miracles really do happen!” But before I can finish the thought, Jim continues to run right by my girl and keeps running to reach another dog in our little network.

My girl tried to play it cool. She watched him run by her. She didn’t try to chase him like she normally would. She didn’t yelp or squeal or bark to try to get his attention. She just watched him and then turned around to find a place to finish her business. I felt like her mood was something akin to my incredulous human version of “I shaved my legs for this?”

Here’s where the lesson comes. I should have mentioned earlier that my dog has a really hard time pooping. If she doesn’t go the second the urge hits, it could take her 5 minutes of straining and trying to get the job done. The second I saw her take off after Jim I knew that an extra 15 minutes would be added to our walk.

True to form, there were a few failed attempts, some more walking, more failed attempts, a water break….more walking. But then voila! She took care of business and was ready to head back to the cool air conditioning of our apartment.

Then a miracle occurred. I don’t know if it was the years of rejection and unrequited love or the stress and strain created by her earlier missed opportunity for a simpler bowel movement, but on the way back to our apartment when she saw Jim she, for the first time in their relationship, didn’t even look at him.

This was quite a shock not just to me but even more so to Jim. Jim saw her and was expecting his usual fan-girl behavior but my baby just kept on walkin’. I was so proud of her. Confused Jim was barking his head off trying to get her attention and I couldn’t help but giggle at the actual look of confusion on Jim’s Dad’s face. I’ve long suspected that he enjoyed this little dance that our dogs did. And yes, I did look around to see if there were any other dogs that he could have been barking at and there were none around. This attention was for her!

It got me thinking. How many times have I been ‘my dog’ in any given situation with a man, most notably my ex-husband? How many times was my over-excited-self waiting to greet my then-husband at the door at the end of the day, only to be told “Give me a minute…I just got in the door.”? How many times had I put off something that was important to me or our children to accommodate my husband because it was all we were going to get from him?

Ladies! Let’s stop accommodating and chasing the men in our lives who don’t accommodate or chase us back! Let’s stop making excuses for why we allow the men in our lives to chase or even look at other women. If we aren’t enough then to hell with them! Let’s find men who appreciate us and don’t make us beg for emotional scraps. We deserve more! We deserve to be their first choice! We are worth it! We should be able to poop when we need to, dammit!

We’ll most likely run into Jim again tonight during our after-dinner walk. Even if my girl slips and reverts back to her Jim-idolizing ways (she is a dog after all), I’ll always be grateful for the lesson she taught me this morning. The next time a “Jim” enters my life, I’ll be more aware. I’ll be ready. I’ll be wiser. I’ll recognize when it’s appropriate to engage and more importantly….when it’s appropriate to ignore him and walk on by.