Pickles & Dimes

It’s been two years since we adopted you, and I can’t believe we’ve had you that long. It seems like just yesterday we strode unsuspectedly into that Petco to buy cat food and came to a skidding stop in front of your crate, knowing seconds after seeing your wrinkly, concerned brow that you were coming home with us.

You’ve learned so much this year. Last year, we taught you to sit, shake, leave it and lay, and now you know how to stay and roll over, and what’s even better is that we don’t even have to say anything because you recognize the hand signals, too. You also know the following words: toy, treat, hot dog, blanket, hop up, outside, walk, Sunny, Abby (you look around warily when we say her name in case she’s about to paw-slap you), bone and because you’re so smart we can’t even spell it out anymore, b-o-n-e.

You’re still nervous around dinnertime. Sometimes when we’re cooking, whether it’s the sound of the kitchen timer ticking away or just the time of day, you’ll start to shiver and will go downstairs to hide under a counter. Sometimes you’ll climb into our lap (and if we’re not currently sitting you’ll make a lap out of our body any way you can), but usually you’ll just hide until we come downstairs with our dinner and then you’ll lay at our feet.

You’ve improved so much with your fear of strangers, and thanks to some training, you no longer bark at the doorbell or people. And if you do bark, we say “enough,” and you almost always stop immediately. This is wonderful for a million reasons, including the fact that we can now have people over! Not to mention that the next-door neighbor can be in his yard without you barking your head off, I can talk to the couple down the street and you’ll sit nicely next to me, and our friends Wes and George can pet you without you growling like Cujo.

Your lessened barking has made camping 100% better. You were always a good camping dog, but now you are great. You’ll only bark if other dogs are barking or if you see horrible beasts (horses). You have your own camping chair, and that makes people roll your eyes at us and say we’re spoiling you, but it beats having you get wrapped around other chairs or table legs or whining because you’re stuck on the ground, which is for other dogs, apparently, but not you.

You love our camper, oh man, do you love the camper. Your favorite thing is to sit right outside it when we’re in there, waiting for an invitation to come in and take a midday nap.

Speaking of naps, you are a champion napper. If someone is on the couch or bed, you’re begging with your eyes to join them, and when you’re invited up, you’ll snuggle as tightly as possible, often turning around repeatedly in circles until you’ve made yourself into a teeny little doughnut, finally settling in with a loud sigh of contentment.

You’re a great sleeper, although you can be noisy. You constantly make little groans and moans and yips, and you frequently twitch or run in your sleep in your eternal quest to catch squirrels or rabbits or robins (whom you despise above all other birds, for some reason). And you’re definitely not a morning dog. It usually takes both of us to wake you up in the morning and you don’t get up unless we follow the daily routine, which consists of you waiting for us to rub your belly, lots of sneezing, phantom itchiness, and an out-of-nowhere, totally-awake sprint off the bed to go outside.

You love other dogs – love them. Your favorite thing to do is run around at full speed, either chasing other dogs, or more likely, begging them to chase you. You’ve been to a dog park once and after some of the bigger dogs left, you were in heaven (you weren’t too fond of the constant humping from the German Shepherd, but you adoringly followed an ornery little Chihuahua named Paco everywhere). You love your camping pals, and you’re the only dog that Jason’s parents’ dog will tolerate, even when you steal her dog bed. And when we board you at the PetsHotel, they recognize you on sight and greet you with a happy, “Shorty!!!!”

You are funny. I know that’s weird to say about a dog, but you are. You’re a total ham and you seem to know when you’ve done something to make us laugh. This includes running around with a toy in your mouth at full speed, growling the entire time; “stalking” your bone by army-crawling toward it v-e-r-y slowly so it doesn’t see your sneak attack; jumping on Jason’s back whenever he bends over; and being obsessed with the scent of our chapstick, getting in our face whenever we put some on.

You love to go in your kennel – we’ve never had you not want to go in there. The only time you get even halfway mad at us is when we’re washing your blanket and you need to go in your crate to dry off (like after coming inside when it’s raining). You’ll sit in there all sad-eyed, and once your blanket is dry, we often can’t even get it halfway inside your crate before you come sprinting in, push us aside and sit on it with a grumpy look on your face that seems to say: never let this happen again.

You love rawhide bones. You have a nylabone that you have in your crate that we call your faux bone, but you love to carry around your rawhide and “bury” it in unlikely places, like your blanket, behind DVDs and in the cat beds.

Abby still doesn’t like you, but she no longer runs off the bed when you hop up there with her. Sunny is your little buddy; she gets confused when you invade her personal space, but she sleeps in your room during the day when you’re in your crate to keep you company. She also eats a few pieces of your food every morning until you come in from outside, and you just sit there and let her, wearing a “Why and how is this happening?” expression on your face, but never getting after her.

My favorite thing about you is when you’re in my lap at night while we’re watching TV. Sometimes you’ll turn your head just to look at my face, like you’re reassuring yourself that I’m there.

And I am. I’ll always be there, buddy. We both will.