Got a puppy. For 3 days.

Finally at peace with some of my unpopular life choices

Not many people will admit they like McDonald’s. I will. In an act of dazzling courage, I took a risk in an office conversation years ago. Food, and in particular hamburgers, had come up, as it is wont to do on a tech team with good rapport.

“Where’s your favorite burger place?” was the question.

When it came my turn to answer, I squared my shoulders and defiantly raised my chin as I answered, “McDonald’s.” These are the kinds of social/political risks you can take in corporate when you are debt-free and can afford to lose a job over an unpopular opinion.

But it unexpectedly took an unexpected turn. My moral stand gave everyone else the courage to admit that they ALSO like McDonald’s. Well, everyone except Ian. Supposedly he’s never stepped foot on a McDonald’s property or eaten their food, and wasn’t going to start for anything. You’ve got to admire principles like that, even if he missed out on a new monthly tradition of team-sans-Ian McDonald’s lunches.

Most people feel pressured to pretend they eschew McDonald’s, even if they don’t. Kind of like how we all feel pressured to admit we love dogs. I don’t—love them with every fiber of my being, that is—despite plenty of societal pressure to love them. Despite what one Utah woman thinks, I’m not actually a terrible human being. I like dogs plenty, and genuinely love some. I’d do almost anything for a dogs with a snaggletooth. It just turns out I love dogs ON OTHER PEOPLE.

How I came to know this truth begins like so: It was COVID. That sentence explains nearly everything I need it to explain.

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But to fill in the few gaps, here goes:

We all made poor decisions during COVID time. Mine included staying up too late watching Tiger King, buying bricks of Velveeta because how could I face a future without it, and deciding to be a DIY home renovator only to abandon course after a few hours of haphazardly applying product purchased from Home Depot to the walls of my unfinished garage and realizing the project was going to be much more demanding than YouTube makes it appear.

And I bought into puppy fever.

“It’ll be so fun,” they said.

“You’ll love having a companion,” they said.

I thought I agreed with them. I also thought, “It’ll be so fun for my nieces and nephews to have a puppy to visit.”

Well.

I bought some kind of doodle named Millie and renamed her Maisie. We were very happy. For a time measured in hours. But the experience was not wasted; I got a kick out of her, got some pictures, had fun introducing her to my niece, and I learned MUCH:

1. Nothing but the crate which had not yet arrived from Amazon can adequately confine a puppy. No amount of duct-tape applied to a strategically wedged, large cardboard box works.

2. Even once said crate arrived, the sounds of a puppy crying are like daggers to the heart of an empath. Neither of us slept at night. One of us, however, could nap on the floor while the other had to attempt to work during the days.

3. Potty training a puppy solo is scientifically proven to be the worst experience known to mankind. I felt like—nay, WAS—a prisoner chained to my kitchen counter watching out of one eye as this four-legged terrorist roamed the main floor. The Internet told me which cues indicated that she was about to go potty yet again on the floor. Unfortunately, those cues looked exactly like the cues that precede everything else a puppy does.

4. Carrying a 13-pound (?) canine up and down two flights of stairs, through the garage, and out to the yard for theoretically bathroom runs—she preferred to use my rug or laminated floor for those—is bad for already compromised knees.

4. Even when the breeder says she accepts puppies back, she doesn’t tell you that you will pay the Terrible Human Tax when you do so. While polite, everything about her demeanor said, “How could I have EVER entrusted SUCH A PERSON with a precious creature?” Even my knee situation didn’t soften that breeder’s heart. I only felt guilty for months.

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But I hadn’t yet learned my lesson. About the time I stopped feeling guilty over Millie/Maisie, I started looking at dogs to foster. The phrase “glutton for punishment” comes to mind. Nearby Park City had a shelter with a sweet-looking elderly dog named Doris. Have I always wanted a Chihuahua? Absolutely no. But her age and tragic late-life abandonment drew me in like an absolute sucker.

When I talked to the shelter people, they offered what they called a no-commitment weekend sleepover to see how Doris and I would get on. This dog was really sweet and they acted devastated to let her. She was also incredibly stubborn, and slow. She easily would’ve lost a footrace to a cold tortoise; and probably would’ve liked it that way if I wanted something different. Our walks were extended affairs of TWO BLOCKS, and because she couldn’t handle my stairs, my bad knees and I were on the hook for getting her up and down them for potty breaks outside.

By Monday morning, my mind was made up. As much as I wanted to be a dog person—and the person to provide a comfortable retirement life for a disadvantaged dog like Doris—she and I and my stairs and my knees weren’t a match. A phone call to the shelter to announce my pending return made it clear that these sleepovers were either not as noncommittal as advertised, or they were less enamored with sweet Doris than they seemed to be.

I slunk into that shelter with Doris and the loaned supplies, and out with a barely salvaged belief that I’m not the terrible person they seemed to think me. I also left with a firm resolve: NO MORE DOGS FOR ME. No siree Bob! Not ever again. Well….maybe…but only when I have a rambler house. With a large fenced yard. And I’m married and have someone else to share the responsibilities with. And the dog is already potty trained. And it doesn’t shed. And doesn’t bark excessively.

It’s taken years and a lot of therapy and inner work, but I’m finally (mostly) at peace with being more of an appreciator of dogs than a collector of them. I’m also coming to peace with this Substack at least occasionally turning into the place wherein I share all the embarrassing happenings of my past and present that reveal my neuroticisms and clumsiness and things of which I used to be ashamed before I realized they were my best WRITING MATERIAL. Like the time I got a ski up my nose. (If you missed that one from last week, one reader shared that she thought it was my funniest yet.) Next week, I’ll tell you about the time I gave the Heimlich to someone who may or may not have needed it…

Isn’t life cool, and aren’t people interesting and sometimes judgmental about what we do and don’t love?? See you in the next one…

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You may also like this favorite essay in which you’ll be astonished at all the dots I connect: McDonald’s (naturally), train queues, a swarm of Spanish police, and a stranger’s highlighted handwritten notes…

SFTR: You Can't Plan for Serendipity