To the Dogs

I'm an animal person. My very first job as a teenager was cleaning out kennels at a veterinary clinic, and I loved it. As a kid, I rescued strays (well, I still do that) and created a pet cemetery in our backyard for our ridiculous amount of pets - hamsters, rats, gerbils, guinea pigs, newts, snakes, fish, and birds (the dog and cats are not buried there). And anyone who knows me knows that I'm also a cat person (and am probably bound to end up as a crazy cat lady in my old age). But despite my love of animals, I'm not a dog person, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

I like that cats, for the most part, take care of themselves, and they don't mind if you take off for a week and leave them with a bowl of food and the toilet open. They purr and kill the mice in the garage (and the house). Dogs, on the other hand, are just way too high maintenance for me. They leave piles of poop all over the yard for you to step in, are always following you around or getting up in your face (I already have two children who do that, thank you very much), they bark and whine if you leave them for a few hours (I have two children who do that, too), and you have to plan ahead if you want to skip town for the weekend without them. Plus they trash hardwood floors.

So I'm a cat person. I've decided that cat people know cats are cats, and that's why we love them. Dog people (and I know and love many of you!) think dogs are people (a la dressing them up in knit sweaters and taking them to the doggie spa). I have a fondness for Cesar Millan (yes, that's the Dog Whisperer) precisely because he's a dog person who knows dogs are dogs, and he loves them for it. (Though I will admit that I loved my childhood poodle-mutt-dog, Mops, and I fell in love with a co-worker's rat terrier, Fred, at my last job. I even let him lick my face - the dog, not the coworker- and that ought to tell you something!)

All that aside, I wanted to officially say a fond farewell to our dog, Oscar. We got Oscar back in 2000, and most of you know that within a year he got hit by a car, which dislocated his back hip and paralyzed his front leg. He was a great dog. He was super smart and could do dozens of cool tricks. And despite the fact that he drove me crazy following me around and barking if we left him out in the yard, I kind of liked him. When I got pregnant with Imogen and we moved to the new house, we decided to find Oscar a home with someone who could give him more attention than we could and who didn't have small children, since the pain in his hip (which developed arthritis) often made him ornery. The last couple of years, he lived with Thomas's former paralegal, her partner, their preteen daughter, and another dog. He was happy. We found out recently that they had to make the heartbreaking decision to put Oscar down after he bit a couple of people, including a young child, when they accidentally touched his hip. He was in a lot of pain. We'll miss you, good buddy.


In unrelated dog news, our gorgeous dogwood tree is in full bloom.


Hooray for Portland in the springtime!