Friday, March 27, 2009

family therapy

when the vet, the janitor, and the old lady in the car park at the post office all suggest outside intervention, i rapidly shift through the abbreviated five "i am not a crappy parent/am i a crappy parent?/i am just an unlucky parent who picked the wrong runt" stages.

completing a psychiatric intake on an identified problem child, will reveal who's in charge pretty quickly; the electronic treatment plan pre-populates with the focus on supernanny's primary adversaries; mumzy and papa.

the denial tree trickles down from: what? there is nothing wrong with my dog, and therefore my puppy rearing skills, to; he's a puppy, this is how they're supposed to act, to; my parents spoiled me, it's all i know, and therefore, their fault, to; ok, ok, i'm completely inadequate as a parental figure to an animal that leads blind people around wal-mart on saturday mornings, so just go ahead and book a double neutering.

i have no doubt that there are $1,500 tempurapedic doggie beds covered in monogrammed, triple digit thread count, but they don't come in a queen, with hot and cold running humans eager to prepare their breakfast at 4am. soon we will be getting phone calls from mall security that axel has been caught shoplifting musical kong's, and stuffing $60 retractable leashes under those giant ears.

and so the two, two-legged mammals are off to obediance school for some short term, intensive group behavior modification skills training, because thus far the humanistic 'he's-a-labrador-which-is-the-4-legged-intelligence-equivalent-of-a-dolphin-so-he-knows-how-to-pee-outside-and-only-chew-on-rope-and-any-shoes-that-don't-belong-to-me' approach has not worked.



(the other names on the sign up sheet were; "fluffy", "twinkle", and "baby").

3 comments:

mansuetude said...

you are sooo funny!

my beagle used to dig up the front lawn, and little holes were everywhere... alas, it was just a stage.

There is a scent marker thing that might "underlie" the neurosis... :)

good luck
have you seen any of those frost bitten tulips yet?

(perhaps you should have named him Fuffuu ...?)

Disa said...

getting impatient for the flowers, so have planted a few for "show". :)

yes, axel likes to check his "pee-mail" every couple of feet, when we go for a walk. most of it is spam, though.

mansuetude said...

oh my dog is like a walking stopping lift your leg pee a drop walking stopping dropping a drop machine... no walk is possible unless you trot!

Unless we're at the sea.

flowers soon... more things to sniff and pee on.