Cats are not dogs

After years of dating, marrying, divorcing and marrying again, soon adding two young kids, I thought I  was happy with two low(ish) maintenance Cats. Busy tho that was, a dog-need caught me by surprise. I lobbied to no avail. And then the universe heard my cry: at the corner of the busy intersection near our house, a mid size black dog, dusty and without a collar, was hanging with a fella whom I already knew from his two hefty boxer type doggies. ‘New pooch?’  ‘Nope: this is a stray – doggie’s been sniffing at baby carriages when they go by. I’m going to take the dog to the humane society.’ I seized the opportunity. Lured the gangly-legged dog home, and into my car for kindergarten pick up. Dog came in with me because I knew the Kindergarten teacher also loved and longed for a dog. She was indeed charmed.

Bringing kid and dog home to hub was a different but predictable story: No way. Nope we’re not having a dog. I sighed and promised I’d deal with it tomorrow. I did various things over the next couple of days: called vets, put up signs. By day 3, what I hoped would happen, happened. Dog won hub over. Then there was the question of a name. I had understood, from previous hypothetical conversations, that the name of choice would be ‘Woof’. But when I put this forward, it was met with derision: “I’m not going to be calling Woof when I want the dog to come” What name would you like? Anything but Woof. Something like Rufus.

Rufus! The dog had a name. That Rufus turned out to be a girl was in keeping with the journey to Dog. With some adolescent rebelliousness, Rufus evolved into a great dog. Hub – a smoker at the time – would do dog-walk-smoke twice a day. When hub and I went out together, neighbours I didn’t know would shout out: ‘Where’s the dog?’ This also happened when I walked the dog, except they’d ask ‘Where’s the guy that usually walks the dog?’ I explained the smoke-dog-walk thing to one women who said her hub used to do that, too, but then quit smoking. I asked for any tips to help my hub do the same: ‘Get rid of the dog.’

Another time, when I was doing the walking, a young fella, 9 or 10 year old Mathew asked me ‘Where’s the old guy that walks the dog?’ I dined on that ‘old guy’ description until, crouching down to eye level with dog and Mathew, Rufus gave me a kiss. Matthew made a face ‘I guess old people don’t mind dogs kissing them.’

Rufus died one winter day, collapsing on a walk. It was sad and we mourned her and decided a break from dogging was in order. That worked until the kids left the nest and there were two fewer people to demand hugs from. And so my dog stalking days began.