Sunday, Bad Dog Sunday

When I come home from work or a trip to the store or even the mailbox, I am greeted by a big brown body of hair and joy, a chocolate blob of happiness that overwhelms me sometimes because I'm not sure what to do with all the love she throws on me. For the most part though, I am overwhelmed by the heart-joy I feel that this four-legged personality, this 80-pound girl of mine, gives me on a regular basis. Sometimes though, I'm overwhelmed by a face that says, Oh no, you're home and I'm not at all sure what to do with what I've done. I've learned through the years of our relationship that a look like that means I'm going to find something she's been into. It means something like, OHGODMOMWHATHAVEIDONE?



Seriously, it was nothing, she just wanted a snack and there it was on the desk right where she could get it if she jumped on the chair and stretched to the back where something smelled edible. If she did that, she'd get the two bags of organic granola I bought my niece from Vermont.

It would have been so much better if I hadn't come home to catch her.



She can't stand it. She hates it when I put an empty wrapper in her face, when I hold the bag up and say, NO, Bad Dog.

Every now and then though, she gets tired of my reactive drama.



Oh, Mom, it was just a bag of oats, Come on!

And when she's that way, that sort of way that says she's blowing me off and I need to get over it because there are lots toys and treats and fun to be had in the world and really I should just let it go, I mean, seriously, you're going to get upset over a bag of oats, that's LAUGHABLE. When she gets that way, well, I find that I laugh too. I can't help myself.

This girl of mine, she can be so bad sometimes. It's one of the things about her that delights me.