National Dog Day…what a racket!!

What a racket. Dogs, who already have the cushiest life on Earth, have somehow finagled a way to earn an exclusive day on the calendar. Like they actually needed an official day. Anyone who has a dog will tell you that every single day is Dog Day. No matter what bizarre, hair brained, cock-eyed stunt they pull they know that at the end of the day they will still get their dinner, a couple of treats, plenty of “good boy’s” and tummy scratches. And now they need more fawning devotion?

Dogs spend 14 hours a day asleep in a variety of shameful poses usually hogging an entire sofa in the process. When they are finally able to rouse themselves from repose they spend another hour searching the yard for the exact perfect spot to relieve themselves. Then there’s the endless growling and barking at the unfortunate man and women who had the nerve to walk their dog on the street in front of the house. Who could forget the ever vigilant warning woofs whenever any delivery man shows up with a box in hand—even though half the time the box contains yet another toy for her?!

Although it isn’t fair to accuse all dogs of the following behavior, our Lucy adds several more wacko traits to the list. First there is the strange meal time protocol that she established years ago whereby she insists upon complete stillness and silence from everyone in the house during her mealtime. You heard that right. When Lucy eats her morning and evening meal she refuses to begin until both of us are seated. It doesn’t matter where we are seated, just that we are not standing. This is non-negotiable. Then there is her psychotic relationship to the stairs in our house. 

Although neither of us can recall any bad stairway experience in Lucy’s entire existence, whenever she is upstairs and we want her to come downstairs, she insists upon an escort. The only exception to the Psycho Stair Rules is when a visitor arrives at the front door. Then its full speed ahead. The second exception is that none of the Psycho Stair Rules apply to any set of stairs in Maine, no matter if they are scary steep and into the darkest abyss, Lucy is convinced that all stairs in Maine lead to a lake. Lastly, there is her supernatural hearing that manifests itself whenever one of us begin eating a bowl of ice cream. No matter how quiet and stealthy I am and no matter where I hide in the house to eat the ice cream—as soon as I near the bottom of the bowl and my spoon makes that tinging sound when I begin scraping the bowl’s bottom, Lucy miraculously appears, as if by teleportation, at my feet with that irresistibly forlorn expression on her face:

Does she look like she needs a National Dog Day? She needs a psychiatrist, that’s what she needs!

But, like all dogs, Lucy is loved deeply and profoundly by everyone who knows her. Despite the considerable work and inconvenience that dogs bring to our lives, they bring something else that is almost impossible to find these days, let alone quantify—joy.