My best friend has been my best friend since high school. Oddly, she does not, and never has, owned dogs. Even still, we bonded early on over cup-o-noodles from the biology room, and as she struggled to understand my fascination and relationships with all four legged creatures, I worked hard to understand her fascination with children. We have found many, many similarities in our respective roles as “moms” and while I’ve been busy managing a million dogs, a business, and a houseful of critters; she has spent those same years having babies and learning the ropes of being a mom to a houseful of humans. We have held hands the whole way, and while she is the rock of the relationship, and I am the one often flying sixteen different directions – over the years we laugh that we are “sisters in parallel universes.”
We often share stories, trials and tribulations of our respective clans, and often find that we have the very same complaints. Someone not listening, siblings fighting, someone acting up to get attention, someone else pottying on the carpet. Strange but true.
As I get closer and closer to becoming a mom to a human myself, her advice, support, and knowledge of human babies has been invaluable to me. As I get bigger and slower, I have more free time to actually spend with my friend, rather than rushed phone calls while I am on the road to somewhere else.
Today I took my four beasts over to play at her mom’s house, and she brought her three kids, and her sister’s two kids. We turned the kids loose in the pool, and the dogs loose in the yard. Now mind you, my friend respects and understands the bond I have with my dogs, but has not spent all that much time around them over the years. The kids have only been around the dogs a few times mostly due to my hectic schedule. So I had to laugh today when the kids decided to play ball with the dogs, and completely disgusted by the “slimy” balls, went to get plastic gloves in order to pick them up. You have to admire the ingenuity. Bless my dogs, they were mostly brilliant, didn’t jump on the kids and waited nicely for a ball to be thrown. Karma, though, poor dear, does not understand the concept of playing slowly. She zoomed for the ball, zoomed back to throw it at someone’s feet, anyone will do, and then proceeded to bark madly at them until they got brave enough to pick up the ball again.
My dear friend says “Can’t she play quietly?” Um, no, that does not compute in the collie brain. There is only ONE way to play ball and this is it. “Why does she have to bark at it?” Well, that’s what she does when she’s in drive, and seeing a ball puts her in drive. “Drive?” my friend says, “Well, PARK IT then dog!”
I see the logic and how my friend got there, but it was still pretty damn funny.
Posted on August 14th, 2008 by michelle
Filed under: My dogs, Pregnancy, The Naked Part
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