I Wear Many Hats

People think being a dog is easy; that my life is the life.  They think my day consists of eating, sleeping, and going out.  Boy, are they wrong!  It’s a tough life I tell you; I earn my naps on the living room couch…I mean…floor!  I keep the squirrels from overrunning the yard, I keep the house clean by snuffing up crumbs that fall on the floor, and I remind my humans to put their things away by retrieving (and sometimes destroying) things that are left out.  And that’s just a few of the services I provide.  And my list of jobs is ever expanding.  Yesterday, for instance, I took on a new role:  therapist.

You see, my sister came home from work a little upset yesterday.  Being the kind hearted family dog I am, I sat on her feet, offered her my paw (I like to hold hands), and let her scratch my back even though I had far greater things on my mind (mainly my impending dinner).  While she scratched my back, she told me that she messed up a presentation that she had to do at work.  I looked up at her with sad understanding eyes, my ears back with sympathy, hoping that if I looked empathetic enough she’d end her story there and get my dinner.  To my loyal readers who just gasped at my ploy:  don’t judge…my stomach was rumbling!  Anyway, it didn’t work.  Figuring her description of her day would be a long story and because I was rapidly fading away to nothing due to hunger pains, I took this opportunity to lay down and show my tummy which my sister obligingly rubbed (hey, I might as well be comfortable).  As she scratched my belly, she told me that she was so nervous at her presentation that she found herself barely able to string two sentences together and that what she did manage to say sounded more akin to Pig Latin than English.  Now I don’t know what kind of language pigs speak, but I do know that pigs are delicious—I love bacon and ham!  “I am so hungry,” I thought.  “Is she ever going to stop bellyaching and get me my dinner?”  She then told me that her day had started going bad prior to the presentation; her breakfast of a buttered slice of raisin bread broke apart in mid bite, got stuck in her hair, then fell, butter side down, onto her blouse and stained it.  At this time I made a mental note to later, in the guise of giving her a big wet kiss on the chin, inconspicuously check her hair for crumbs.  

I have to admit that it did sound like my sister had a fairly crappy day, but mine wasn’t all that great either and I didn’t postpone her dinner to tell her about it.  A pillow was left on the living room chair which meant that there wasn’t room for me to sleep on it, I didn’t get to go for a car ride at all today, and now, dinner was late.  So tell me, who had the bad day?

Still, the belly rub was nice and I think I made my sister feel a little bit better because soon she got up and got me my dinner.  When I was finished eating I wiped my slobbery chin all over her leg in appreciation.