Gives and Takes

During the Covid lockdown of 2020, I got a dog. Well, technically, I didn’t. But our family did. We got a dog. Or more specifically, our adult daughter who had returned home as a pandemic boarder did. She got a dog-- who lived in our home. Rosco-–who sort of belongs to all of us--was Chandler’s dream long, long deferred. 

For as far back as I can remember, my daughter wanted a dog.  As a little girl, she loved picture books of puppies, then movies about dogs. When she was in high school, she had a collection of puppy faces and frolicking fur ball videos on her phone. (What girl with a smartphone doesn’t?) She would show them to me from time to time to test the waters. “Looooook!” she would swoon while shoving the phone in my face. 

“Awwww,” I would boomerang back, simultaneously enamored with the image and completely aware that what she was asking for was not just a dog but a dog who could live in her room with her. And sleep on our couch. And beg at our feet when we sat down to eat. And bark…and pee on the carpet…and shed.

Over and over and over again, every time she asked, “Mom, can I pleeeeeease?” my answer was always the same.

“Not in the house. Not in my house, ever.”

Oh the famous last words of parents. “Ever” ended in April about four years ago.

I grew up having dogs as pets. Fawn and Coco—two mutts from the same litter who looked absolutely nothing alike—were like siblings to my brother and me. Siblings, that is, who lived outside. In a doghouse. On the patio. In the weather. (Gasp, shock, abhorrent disbelief!) I was raised to believe this is how it works. Cows, horses, sheep, foxes, cats AND dogs—things that walk on four legs instead of two—live outdoors. They’re built for the elements. They need room to run and roam. Humans, on the other hand, live indoors.  We need kitchens and bathrooms, television screens and couches. People live in. Pets live out. Everybody has a place.

Enter Rosco, the spunky French Brittany Spaniel who stretched all my boundary lines.

Chandler and her dad organized the puppy acquisition behind my back while I was busy doing other things. (Mostly zooming.) Then one day they just announced that they were going to pick up “her dog.” Four hours later they walked in the house, Dane carrying sacks of puppy paraphernalia and Chandler cradling Rosco in the crook of her right arm. 

Our house hasn’t been the same since.

I find random bones in the hallway, shoes in rooms where I didn’t leave them, hair on couches, chairs, rugs… and most of the clothes that I wear.

Chandler and Rosco moved out along with the global pandemic, but the anti-doggie-seal on our house broke open for good. Rosco visits regularly and stays with us when Chandler has places to be. His food and water bowl have a permanent spot on the brick paver floor just inside our double back doors. We keep a basket of his toys beside the couch. An entire shelf behind the bar is reserved for leashes, brushes and treats. And he’s not the only four-legged friend who now pretends he owns the place. My son and daughter-in-law have two--a golden retriever and a pointer, named respectively Sophie and Ace—who also come and go as they please. Our house is a grand hotel for dogs.

I wish I could say I’m a fan of the entirety of this arrangement, but I can’t. Because I’m not. The panting, the drooling, the vet bills, the shedding, the occasional five-alarm bark. They’re every bit as annoying as I once imagined they would be. Yet, somehow, all I knew I’d hate is overshadowed by all I never dreamed there would be to love.

It’s the Cracker Jack surprise of give and take.

I wouldn’t trade for the enthusiastic arrival, the get-as-close-to-you-as-I-possibly-can when nobody else is home, the perking of the ears with a head tilt when I pose a question. These pups don’t judge or hold a grudge. They just come spreading joy alongside of slobber. They wear you down with happy no matter how much armor you have on.

And that’s just what I get from the dogs. The multiplied blessings come from the mixture of them with us-- and them with them and us with us. The love that careens off one living thing and slams into another creates a matrix of connection that fortifies our air.

Scarcely, if ever, do we love the whole of anything.  (Or anyone, if I’m really being real.) And rarely does a hard line do the tricks that a stretchy one can. Things of merit typically need to suck in here and breathe out there to work right. Marriage. Teamwork. Raising kids. Staying on budget. It’s deciding what you want and then deciding again, more acutely, what you want even more. A concession here. A give-back there. A deep sigh of toleration with a look the other way can unearth wonder. Sometimes what we don’t like can lead to what we love.

I loved teaching in the classroom. I detested grading papers. I love planting flowers. I do not enjoy spraying for insects and disease. I love going shopping. I hate trying things on. Most “gets” come, whether or not we like it, attached to a fairly substantial “give.”

Family dinners at our house are a fiasco. When a cat passes by outside the window the world turns upside down. I vacuum sometimes twice a day.

But Rosco lays on my feet when I’m typing and sometimes during dinner, I pet Sophie under the table with my foot.  If there were a scoreboard, the “takes” would lap the “gives.”

P.S.  Give a Little Bit