You treat Bingo like a dog," my wife Maggie accused me with disdain. When the dog
has to go and it’s rainingI didn't understand her point. It's true, I do treat him like a dog. After all, he is a dog. What am I supposed to treat him like -- a member of the Diving Donkey act from the 50th State Fair?
The issue was peeing in the rain. From the time he was a pup, I've trained the Shar-pei to go outside and do his business in the little yard next to the patio. Bingo got it down from an early age and there have been remarkably few "accidents" in the house.
The only hitch is that Bingo doesn't like to go out in the rain. When he was little, he was stoic about it. He'd suck it up and slink along hugging the house until the last moment, when he'd dash into the rain and quickly unload.
Bingo the Shar-Pei
Lately, though, Bingo has become increasingly averse to the rain. When we open the door to let him out and he sees it's raining, he backs up faster than a yo-yo whose string has been yanked.Maggie thinks it's cruel to send him out into the rain. She's deaf to my well-reasoned point that wild dogs live in the rain. She doesn't care that there's a dry porch where he can hang out. But I stand my ground. I don't like to see him sniffing around the nether reaches of the house when I know his bladder is about to burst.
Now Maggie has taken to covering up for the dog. It started when our daughter Treena complained of odd odors on the patio.
"Hmm," I said. "I wonder if Bingo hasn't been peeing in the side yard where he's supposed to."
Maggie offered, "I have a hunch that possibly he's been peeing on the patio next to the house when it's raining so he doesn't get wet."
Habepti the Shih-tsu
Bingo and I had a heated exchange of views. Later Maggie confessed, "OK, so it wasn't a hunch. I've actually seen him pee on the patio and I didn't do anything about it. God, it's bad enough that I enable our kids. Now I'm enabling the stupid dog."I've got a story that should make her feel better.
Our night city editor Stirling Morita and his wife Leah have a Shih-tsu named Habepti, Egyptian for "little dear one." She's not much of a dog, to tell the truth. Just a pint-size ball of fluff who looks like she ought to be dangling from a rear-view mirror. But they love her.
Anyway, Leah was out of town the other night and Stirling was sleeping on the sofa. Sometime during the night, Habepti jumped up onto the couch and Stirling let her sleep with her nose nuzzled under his armpit.
In the morning, Stirling discovered that under the dog's nose, in her mouth, was a hunk of doggie-doo that Habepti had kept wedged under his arm all night.
Stirling, a true dog enabler, excused her foul behavior. "She wasn't eating it or anything. She gets a treat when she makes doo-doo on the paper. There wasn't anybody awake to give her the treat, so she was saving it until morning to show me."
I'm trying to imagine what kind of treat would be worth carrying a bowel movement in one's mouth all night. And they wonder why I treat these animals like dogs?
I didn't ask why Stirling was sleeping on the sofa while Leah was out of town. Heck, when Maggie's out of town I let the dog sleep in her spot on the bed.