REALLY SMART DOGS

I have a lot of dog news today, so bear with me.

First, the Great White Dope wakes me up at 5:30 a.m. Apparently she deems this an ideal time to explore my inner ear with her bulbous black nose. At the loud, moist intrusion, I groggily open a lid, and there, in the eerie light of dawn, about two millimeters from my face, is a ghostly mass of unruly hair and a pair of coal-black eyes looking right into mine. AH! I shudder with fright, begin to let out a scream, then remember it's just Crazy Molly, whom I've agreed to baby sit. Crazy Molly with her crazy hairdo and crazy ways. When she sees I'm awake, she bolts around the bed at breakneck speed, then hops up on my chest and proceeds to dig wildly at my cleavage, like she's unearthing a chipmunk. When she realizes — like a few men I've dated — that this behavior is getting her nowhere, she plops down and commences a low growl. The more I ignore her, the louder and longer the growling becomes, until it transforms itself into a single, supersonic bark, which seems to surprise even Molly. Emboldened by her own nerve, she follows up with a string of ear-splitting yipes. (I had forgotten that, living with my parents, 5:30 would be practically sleeping in for her). I get up to do her bidding — breakfast, tennis ball — while Mabel, more than a little pissed off, falls back asleep.



Some of us are too far gone to profit from beauty sleep, but Miss Mabel is still in her prime and can't be deprived. She's gotten a pretty big head recently because at her last vet visit the doctor said she had a perfect body and the teeth of a 2-year-old. She weighed in at a sleek 59 pounds, which has caused Rupert and me to take a long, hard look at our figures. Rupert weighed in at 73, and, when no one was looking, I weighed in at a tiny bit more. Rupert says his fluffy fur makes him look pudgier than he really is, and I say my fluffy pants do the same for me. Still, the scales, especially the brutal ones at the doctor's office, don't lie, so I've decided I'm going to start running, and Rupert is going to be my running mate. Our first foray will be to his favorite place: the river.



In other news, my brother's dog, Rocky, has just retired from the police force, and my brother is adopting him. (See the KC Star story, if you're interested). Rocky is now an official member of our family. (Wouldn't it be great to have a drug dog while you're raising two teenagers? I think it'd be really fun to subject the kids and their friends to random drug sniffs. Rocky could be like those retired cops who become security guards — just pacing the floor in case the kids get any crazy ideas).



When I was visiting my friend Amy in Atlanta, one of her friends gave her a ceramic dachshund that you set on your dresser to hold your loose change and wallet and whatnot. It warmed my heart and reminded me of something my mom made for me when I was in kindergarten, something I had forgotten about: something to hold my glasses at night.

Aside from this kid named Vernon, I was the only kindergartner who wore glasses. Remember this?



I didn't like wearing glasses. I didn't like getting called "four-eyes." (If those kids had had an ounce of wit, they would have called me "three-eyes"; alas, they were a dull lot). Anyway, my mom — in true mom fashion — attempted to alleviate some of the pain of being "different" by making me something special in her ceramics class (which she enrolled in to alleviate the loneliness of being a stay-at-home mom): a cute little ceramic dog to hold my ugly old glasses. She had etched "To Kim, From Mom" on the bottom, and she explained to me that the dog was just a plain old dog UNTIL YOU PUT THE GLASSES ON IT; then it became A REALLY SMART DOG.

After that, when the kids at school would make a crack about my glasses, I'd still feel bad, of course, but the bad feeling would be tempered by the self-assuring thought of "I'M A REALLY SMART DOG."

When I got home from Atlanta, I asked my mom what happened to the ceramic dog. She said she still had it. She still used it, in fact, for the reading glasses she wears now. When did I stop using it? When did she reclaim it, as mothers do so many homemade gifts that are "outgrown" or not properly appreciated? I told her I really liked it. I hinted that it was very special to me, without articulating why. Would she even remember? She didn't say anything.

But when she came to pick up Molly this evening, she gave me a gift bag for baby sitting. Inside it — in true mom fashion — was this: