Women's Best Friend

She sits outside the bathroom door while I go through the pre-bedtime routines. You would think she’s not paying attention. As soon as I start putting lotion on (the last step of all the trouble most of us women have to be bothered by for maintenance sake) though, she walks to me and sits down on the rug looking at me with her best possible demeanor on display, as if asking me with her round brown eyes, “Is it time to brush my teeth?”

How can you say ‘no’ to a Yorkie that’s so cute and well behaved?

Coco was a present from Jill. While I was stressing with a near nervous breakdown (this is my first puppy and I had no idea how to raise a puppy) a couple of weeks before I picked her up, I had no foresight whatsoever what a joy and a passionate companion she turned out to be.

To pacify her while I went to work and left her home all alone, I folded up a worn t-shirt for her to lie on, so she could ‘smell’ my scent and be somewhat comforted—a trick I learned from a ‘doggy’ book. One day I left home practically in tears, because I saw her dragging that t-shirt with all her might (she was so tiny the folded t-shirt looked monumental to her) trying to pull it into her crate. I could just hear her thoughts: this is all I got to protect and comfort me before mommy comes home again.

I have never hated my job more.

Now that she’s almost 2 years old, she is used to be alone in the house. I put in a doggy door for her, but I think she spends most of her day sleeping—when she’s not busy with burying the bones in the backyard. She doesn’t even dash through the doggy door when I come home. Instead, she waits inside of the plastic flap, watching me walk through the tiny backyard, and pushes though the flap to give me my royal welcome as soon as I put the key in the keyhole by standing on her hind legs and waiving her 2 front legs. I call it ‘high 5’ greeting. I have to say that she greets strangers with much more fervor than she greets me. The energy she displays when other people show up at the front door almost makes me jealous, and at times wonder if she’s going to pass out from too much excitement.

She begs when I eat. No, I don’t think it’s annoying. I think dogs are pack animals, and it’s only natural to share my food now that I’m the pack leader. Andrew got a good laugh when he told me I was the alpha dog. I don’t really see the humor in calling your own mother a dog though—giving that I am female. I give her tiny bits so she doesn’t eat too much of human food. Sometimes I give her vegetables and, since she’s not a veggie eater, she would settle down by my feet and consider begging a lost cause. That doesn’t stop her from running with joy every night when dinner is served. She’s an eternal optimist.

I once told her, after yet another let down from a short encounter with a member from the opposite sex, “It’s just you and me, Coco.” She licked my face as if she understood, and told me, “It’s OK.”

You can’t ask for more from your best friend.