It's All My Fault!

Unlike our two leading presidential candidates, I have no problem admitting to my guilt, at least as far as taking responsibility for the way my dog acts. Whenever my kids visit they are quick to point out that Rigby is totally spoiled. I couldn't agree more. I would like to mention in my defense though, that I really didn't want a dog. Not because I don't love them, I do. I used to walk around town with dog biscuits in my pockets just in case I ran in to one, but dogs are a lot of work. They have to be walked and fed and picked up after. When you have a dog like mine whose been robbed of the joy of sex, the only other thing that's left that brings such pleasure is eating. Of course only so much of that food is converted to energy or fat, and the rest ends up on the ground in a recycled form. Because he is quite fond of eating, there is an uncommon amount of pooping going on. That was one of my arguments against having a dog, however I was assured by the only other full time resident of the house that she would take care of it. You can imagine how well that has worked out. I could probably start a business cleaning up after him and the various and sundry other dogs that travel about the town. Tom's Poop and Scoop. The problem would be getting paid. If folks aren't interested in cleaning up after their pets, they probably won't be too interested in paying for my services either. Rigby was just in the office a few minutes ago to let me know that he was ready for his noon snack, a few Milkbone dog biscuits. When Jan comes home for lunch at 1:00, he'll expect another snack. Then throughout the day, whenever he comes in from doing his business outside, he'll expect a couple of baby carrots. I just returned from Costco with a big five pound bag. Of that bag, we may eat a handful of them ourselves, the rest will go to him. When he's being stubborn and wants to stay outside and sniff all the local haunts, we bribe him with an offer of carrots. Usually it works, but sometimes he's so engrossed in what he's smelling that we have to resort to the promise of a piece of cheese. We have to spell out the word cheese if we don't want to cause a scene, and we have taken to referring to carrots as orange tubers so that he doesn't know what we're talking about, in the event that we aren't ready to give him any yet. In addition to the noon and 1:00 snacks, he always has his regular Iams  dog food mixed with either pumpkin or plain yogurt, then when I eat breakfast, he insists on having some cereal (usually corn flakes) but they must have milk on them. Of course breakfast isn't breakfast without some toast, so he gets a few small bites of that, although I'm happy to report that he doesn't like oat nut bread, unless of course it has jelly on it. I don't want his teeth to rot out of his head so I refrain from giving him any jelly. Somewhere around 4:00 PM he starts bothering me about supper.  He's got the most annoying whine I've ever encountered. It's like he's trying to clear his throat or something and he can keep it up for hours. I'm usually able to put him off for awhile with a carrot bribe. If I feed him too soon, he'll think he needs to eat supper again around 8:00 or so. As it is, he gets what amounts to a midnight snack about 8:30 or so.After supper, he gets a piece of cheese surrounding his medicine. He's got a low thyroid condition, just like me, and he won't take his meds  otherwise. Frankly, I'm shocked that he doesn't weigh thirty pounds or more. Fortunately carrots don't add much fat to the diet, although the same can't be said about cheese or toast or perhaps even Milkbones.  In any event, much like Dr. Frankenstein, I'm afraid I've created a monster- who at this very moment is at the doorway doing his throat clearing whine trying to get my attention. Before I have to break out the carpet cleaner, I better tend to business. The fun just never ends.