Our house guest

My first full day with G dog goes fairly well. Because of COVID, I work from home, which makes figuring things out with him easier. He follows me absolutely everywhere, which is exactly what he should be doing. But it feels weird to always have him underfoot, and I’m not super keen on having a spectator with me every time I have to go to the bathroom.

There’s no doubt about it—he’s adorable and, oh, so sweet. Those beautiful dark brown eyes and overly expressive old man eyebrows are simply too much. But he’s a stranger, and it feels like we’re just pet-sitting someone else’s dog right now. And if I’m being completely honest, there are just some things that I find gross about dogs. He doesn’t stink, but he does have a distinct dog smell that I’m not sure I’m ever going to get used to. And the slobber strings he gets every time he takes a drink are downright comical if they weren’t so icky. It’s like a Fu Manchu mustache made out of dog saliva. I start carrying a dishtowel with me from room to room so I can wipe away the drool from his face, from my hands, from my clothes, and the furniture. 

When I try to exercise him with an indoor game of fetch, I find significant scratches on our beautiful wood floors, now making them paw-scraped in addition to being hand-scraped. I try to get him to run on the tile in the foyer instead. The poor boy can’t get any traction and almost goes careening into our glass curio cabinet. This is just too dangerous and destructive to continue. 

I text Connie to ask her about the barking and tell her that he seems to be scratching himself a lot. She tells me that the barking will resolve itself and that the scratching could be a nervous reaction to being in a foreign place. Despite my aversion to scratched floors and slobbered up furniture, I’m sure this can’t be easy for G either. He’s had to leave everything he’s ever known, and he doesn’t understand what’s going on. I do think that, under the circumstances, he’s really handling it all like a champ. 

It’s a huge adjustment for everyone in the household but none more so than the cat. Rosco’s entire life has been disrupted, and he’s not handling it well. Having been chased across the house by the dog on the first night, Rosco is now hiding out in the basement and puked in a couple of different places. I wish I could make it easier for him, but other than keeping them separated by a gate between the upstairs and downstairs for now so they can get used to each other’s smells, I don’t know what else to do. 

The second night is a complete repeat of the first, but the nighttime barking seems to last for a shorter amount of time. It’s another sleepless night with a 3 am visit to the backyard, but at least it’s the weekend now. I have to remind myself that it’s only been two days. And nothing worth anything ever comes easy.