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QaR
September 2008 
Love, Of An Unexpected Kind
Posted on Aug 9th, 2008
by 
GwenCaith
GwenCaith
It's 4am on a Saturday, and I'm happily awake. This week has been filled with drama, triggered by the playboy-irresponsible machinations of an Ex-husband who wouldn't grow up and take responsibility for my preteen daughters; a court hearing was held, and the results have drained me, even more than the very hearing itself.
Having been preparing intellectually and emotionally for this melodrama for a few weeks now, I've been neglecting my housework and other relationships; when someone has reached their saturation point with one's neglect, however, attention-seeking behavior is sure to follow......
I honestly DON'T think what has transpired the last 24 hours was my dog Sophie's preferred manner, of getting my attention.
I found Sophie, a Petit Basset Griffon Vendeen of 53 weeks in age, in a local shelter, at the end of this past May. Admittedly, she didn't seem terribly bright when I got her, compared to other dogs in my history, but I loved her looks and settled in, for having an average fluffball, that would share my antique bed and my newly acquired thrift store purchased loveseat.
Sophie, it seems, has adopted, with a great deal of cynical humor, my quintessential single ways. In doing so, she has proceeded to challenge my values! If I was paying too much attention to cable television, Sophie was quick to attempt to treat the cable remote like a doggie candy bar; teeth marks also have appeared on expensive leather-bound diaries and schedule books, and I can only be grateful that my favorite 35mm SLR camera is mainly a heavy metal model, so far impervious to her oral displays of jealousy.
This week, though, Sophies behavior got WORSE; by Wednesday, I was convinced I had the worst-behaved dog in my county, probably my state. I planned on asking a single veterinarian friend of mine if SHE might help me find a more suitable home for Sophie...
Alas, before I could have that conversation, Sophie demonstrated pain and illness; by Friday afternoon, I was gratefully pumping this curmudgeon of a canine, with Clavamox antibiotics, and stroking her fur, as I quietly held her and apologized for not giving the girl the time and attention that might have aborted the pain her urinary tract infection obviously has had her in, all week.
After having fallen asleep with her on that too-short loveseat, I awakened at 3am, to find Sophie trying to climb off my lap; by the time I realized what was happening, I was sitting upright on one end of that loveseat, while Sophie sardonically proceeded to chomp down on a pink baseball cap my youngest daughter had given me, and I'd really not liked, anyway.
As I write this, I know that I have found a match in temperament; when I see my vet friend Maggie today, I'll NOT be talking to her, about GIVING SOPHIE AWAY. Instead, I plan on speaking in hushed, grateful tones, of this now companion canine daughter, who has my sense of the irreverent, loves the creature comforts of antique beds, and who thinks chicken noodle soup is the very thing humans should give a neglected and sick canine.
I am privileged to have Sophie; I am privileged, to find such a soulmate in love.
Having been preparing intellectually and emotionally for this melodrama for a few weeks now, I've been neglecting my housework and other relationships; when someone has reached their saturation point with one's neglect, however, attention-seeking behavior is sure to follow......
I honestly DON'T think what has transpired the last 24 hours was my dog Sophie's preferred manner, of getting my attention.
I found Sophie, a Petit Basset Griffon Vendeen of 53 weeks in age, in a local shelter, at the end of this past May. Admittedly, she didn't seem terribly bright when I got her, compared to other dogs in my history, but I loved her looks and settled in, for having an average fluffball, that would share my antique bed and my newly acquired thrift store purchased loveseat.
Sophie, it seems, has adopted, with a great deal of cynical humor, my quintessential single ways. In doing so, she has proceeded to challenge my values! If I was paying too much attention to cable television, Sophie was quick to attempt to treat the cable remote like a doggie candy bar; teeth marks also have appeared on expensive leather-bound diaries and schedule books, and I can only be grateful that my favorite 35mm SLR camera is mainly a heavy metal model, so far impervious to her oral displays of jealousy.
This week, though, Sophies behavior got WORSE; by Wednesday, I was convinced I had the worst-behaved dog in my county, probably my state. I planned on asking a single veterinarian friend of mine if SHE might help me find a more suitable home for Sophie...
Alas, before I could have that conversation, Sophie demonstrated pain and illness; by Friday afternoon, I was gratefully pumping this curmudgeon of a canine, with Clavamox antibiotics, and stroking her fur, as I quietly held her and apologized for not giving the girl the time and attention that might have aborted the pain her urinary tract infection obviously has had her in, all week.
After having fallen asleep with her on that too-short loveseat, I awakened at 3am, to find Sophie trying to climb off my lap; by the time I realized what was happening, I was sitting upright on one end of that loveseat, while Sophie sardonically proceeded to chomp down on a pink baseball cap my youngest daughter had given me, and I'd really not liked, anyway.
As I write this, I know that I have found a match in temperament; when I see my vet friend Maggie today, I'll NOT be talking to her, about GIVING SOPHIE AWAY. Instead, I plan on speaking in hushed, grateful tones, of this now companion canine daughter, who has my sense of the irreverent, loves the creature comforts of antique beds, and who thinks chicken noodle soup is the very thing humans should give a neglected and sick canine.
I am privileged to have Sophie; I am privileged, to find such a soulmate in love.
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