It Takes A Village

Oh.

No.

I don't mean to recover from a  knee replacement.

I mean to recover from a knee replacement with two dogs.

Forget the network of people necessary to get you to physical therapy and doctor appointments, to bring you meds, coffee, buy groceries, and make meals. Forget the daily phone calls, the patience to listen to me whine about pain/meds/exercise/pain/meds/exercise, and making sure I have clean exercise clothes to wear to p/t.

I'm talking about The. Dogs.

As Mr. Pom so wisely put it the other day, "They're here now. They're part of the family. But what were we thinking?"

Our dogs have become daycare dogs.

I never even knew there was such a thing until about a month after we got Cucciolo. We've had several dogs in our lives, starting with a Siberian Husky named Sparky, whom we got before we were married and who lived until age 17. After she ate the vinyl flooring in our apartment (from the middle out, no less), we started daycare with her. Back then, daycare meant leaving her at my parents' house, where she enjoyed the backyard and playing with my sisters. She was THE sweetest dog we ever had and aside from her natural tendencies to shed cotton balls of fur everywhere, jump fences, fall into swimming pools, and despite our sloth at never properly training her to walk on a leash, she was THE best dog we ever had.

You all may remember our last dog, the Samoyed we rescued from a shelter. We wanted an older dog, but didn't know we were getting a 12 year old dog and her short two years with us were filled with turmoil as she became diabetic, incontinent, and acquired dementia. Phew.

But did we learn? Noooo.

So now we have these two adorable, huge dogs, who require massive amounts of exercise, entertainment, food, and supervision. Well, Cucciolo does. Bella Sera would just as soon lie on the bed with me all day and be fed bits of toast whilst I channel surf. Bella is directly descended from my side of the family. Cucciolo, however, is my son in canine form: highly intelligent, curious, and way too energetic for two old people who just want to pet a dog's head at night and then pass out.

Our solution to Cucciolo v. the long hours we work, is to send both to Doggie Day Camp.  It's vaguely in the direction of where I work, but completely at the opposite end of the earth from where Mr. Pom works, and now that I am laid up, he has begun the Doggie Daycare Commute. The poor  man is getting up before dawn, feeding the dogs, walking the dogs, making me breakfast and lunch, packing a freezer bag with drinks and ice packs, filling a thermos with coffee, delivering it all upstairs to me, then hauling the two dogs to the daycare before they are even opened.

The staff there runs out and grabs the dogs for us and have been so wonderful about our early morn and late eve pickups that I will be baking them a cake (and why shouldn't they be since we are probably the only customers with TWO dogs who attend FIVE days a week). In short, we are Their Best Customers. I could put finally redo our twenty year old kitchen for the amount of money being spent on the two dogs.

 

Why not let them stay home, you ask? Listen to a typical evening after the dogs have been home, even with a dogwalker in the middle of the day:

Us: Cucciolo, stop barking!

Us: What does he want?

Us: OMG, he has all the sofa pillows/shoes/The Princess's dinner/the remote control

Us: What does he want?

Us: Give him a bone/toy/treat/our firstborn

Us: WHY IS HE WHINING?

Us: Take him out/Bring him in/Take him out/Bring him in

Us: Why is he crying??

Us: Leave Bella alone! Now!

Us: Hee Hee, she just clobbered her own son (Bella, not me)

Us: We just want to relax for five minutes!

Mr. Pom: Why am I always responsible for the dogs at night?

Mrs. Pom: Why is Micalangela, their "mother" in college and we are here with the dogs??

The Princess: OMG, I have dog hair on my Manolas! (She doesn't have Manolas but wishes she did)

The Fiance: The. Dog. Ate. My. Iphone.

Mr. Pom: Godammit! I just want 5 minutes peace!

I suppose we could just sent Cucch to DDC and let Bella stay home. She really doesn't need the stimulation like her crazed son does. But I tried that for about a week and as soon as I put on my coat and grabbed Cucc's leash, she would jump onto the couch, curl up in a ball, and refuse to look at me. Heartbreak. I hired a dogwalker who took her to the park each day (so now I'm saving ten bucks a day - woo hoo!) but I was home sick one day when the dogwalker came and as soon as she came into the house, Bella ran into her crate and refused to come out. Nuff said.  Either I had to get a nanny cam or fire the dogwalker. No more dogwalker. And then the staff at DDC, the clever staff, makes sure to tell me each day how Bella and Cucch really love each other, and sleep next to each other, and mainly play with each other...

They even sent me a get well card. From the dogs. With their photograph on it.

Back to hauling two dogs a day.

I am stealthily planting the idea in the head of DDC people that THEY should adopt Cucch as their "mascot". Then I can visit him, play with him, but give up the college tuition we are paying for him to be entertained twelve hours a day.

But then each evening,  Cucch comes home, jumps on the bed, I scream to get him before he lands on The Knee, he stinks of other dogs' unmentionables, and he rolls all over the bed, burying his snout under my arm and then flopping across my stomach with his head up against my face.

Bella jumps up and stares at me until I make room for her, all the while, neither dog is on the nice sheet laid out to protect the new duvet, and soon I am doing the two-handed dog petting routine, making certain not to stop for either or they will start pawing me. Then they hear Mr. Pom open the pantry door where the dog food is kept and both jump off, front legs sailing over me, hind legs hitting my solar plexus, and we begin a new evening.

Us: He's drinking out of the toilet again!!!