Sherlock the Dog

These are picture of our puppy. He stands about a foot tall, and is of indeterminate lineage. When I don’t feel like choking him, I will try to take a better picture.

He came to us by way of North Carolina. Now, when he isn’t clandestinely staining our hardwood floors, he resides in a medium sized, slightly used moving box in our living room.

He’s cute. You can’t necessarily tell from the photos, but he is kind of adorable. He’s got the kind of face that some people want to pinch and others just want to eat up. That is, if you don’t have one of these.

Uma: The King Kong of Cute!

I’ve got a 3 year old and she is the King Kong of cute.  I’m not just speaking from fatherly pride. This little girl is precious. She’s made out of cutonium, and when she walks by the old ladies get cavities in their remaining teeth. She just carried a whole bag of oranges down the steps, straining her little muscles, her little face twisted with herculean exertion. She sounded like a cartoon character drunk on rainbows.

I am immune to Sherlock’s cuteness. Other people get dogs for companionship or because they make them say, “awwwwwww.” Not me. I have a wife and three kids, and while Uma won’t always be three-year-old cute, she is now. My cup runneth over with adorableness and love.

We brought him home to watch the house, and teach the kids responsibility. The watching part is easy. His bark, though squeaky, shows promise. Responsibility? I doubt it.

On Friday I walked around the yard with a floppy frisbee in one pocket and a roll of blue plastic bags in the other. I was picking up poop.

I throw the frisbee. Encourage him when he chases it, but don’t worry when he doesn’t. Walk to the frisbee and pick it up (He’s not going to fetch at this age). I take big, measured steps, my eyes scanning the ground. His poop lurks among the grass. The kids say that they pick it up. Still, there is steady supply left for me. Bags and bags of it.

This isn’t my responsibility. This is the kid’s job. It is one of the promises that they made to me on the way home from getting Sherlock. They were excited. They would have agreed to anything. Now they are “meh” about Sherlock, and our informal contract is effectively void.

I woke up at 5am today to put him out, because he was barking. I passed their rooms. Looked into the little cracks in their doorways. Maybe they were sleeping. Maybe they were playing possum because they knew that I would take care of it if they just waited long enough. I didn’t have that luxury. Although I could have slept through it, my wife couldn’t, and so she shook me awake.

I put him out. I put him back in his medium shipping box. He starts whining before I make it up the stairs. So I take him down again and lay him next to the couch. There I sit until he goes back to sleep. By the way, he had to go out again at 7am. The kids weren’t up yet. Again. This time I looked at facebook.

I’m no stranger to losing sleep. As I said, I have a three year old. I sleep when she sleeps. Otherwise we both sit on that blue couch and look at Netflix. Have you ever heard of Pingu? He’s the embodiment of my insomnia.

This is what 3am looks like

But I had convinced myself that this would be different. I did my time already. I’ve had three dogs, two of which robbed me of sleep. Then came the Uma, who made them look like chumps both in her willingness to keep me awake and my willingness to do so. But I was passing the torch. This was their turn.

I remember my father saying things to me like, “You don’t want that dog!” He had a dozen ways to say it, all of which made me feel terrible. I didn’t know how he could be so mean, until now. I’ve said it too. And just like it didn’t work with me, it doesn’t work with them either. They hang their heads and do whatever it was that they were supposed to have done, but by then it’s a punishment, not a responsibility.

I would even threaten to take him back, but I think it would hurt me more than them. Although I would never say it aloud, that dog is part of the family now. He’s not going anywhere.

How much sleep didn’t my father get because of me? Probably years worth. I’m learning that is what parents do. They suffer quietly while their children complain about wii batteries and out of date cell phones. I thanked my parents this morning, for putting up with my tantrums. They took it in stride, acting as if it weren’t a hardship at all when I know that it was. But then, they know a lot about karma by now. They get all the sleep they want. I sleep when the Uma and the dog let me. Poetic justice.

If you know how to get a teen and a tween to care about a puppy, please comment. On TV, they always become best friends. TV is full of lies.

I’ve written about fatherhood before, here. I also wrote about my grandfather, whose approach to everything was so different, but he was truly a man of his times.