Dog

     Simon and I have been wanting a dog for years.
     When we first started dating, neither of us had a dog because we lived in apartments that prohibited them. Simon bought me a guinea pig named Marshall instead. Marshall traveled the length of the United States with us when we moved back to Idaho.  After a lifelong diet of organic veggies and deluxe guinea pig food, he died at an unexpectedly young age.  Since we were living in an apartment, we had to bury him in a friend's backyard.  We put him to rest in a velvet-lined Johnny Walker Blue Label whiskey box.  I donated his angel Halloween costume and sporty pink leisure outfit to the Salvation Army soon afterwards.
     Clara has inherited our affinity for pets. She especially loves dogs. Now that we have a house of our own, along with a backyard, it's time for a dog.
     We will probably end up getting one from the Humane Society, but we still talk about breeds we'd like.  When we first started talking about dogs, I imagined getting a really big one. Maybe a lab or a German Shepherd, like my Aunt Judy has.  Or maybe a Mastiff or Saint Bernard.  A big bear of a dog that the kids can sleep with.  I see big dogs and I want to hug them.
     Simon wants something like a Scottish terrier.  He grew up with small dogs-a Bichon Frise named Scarlett and a Peekapoo named Zoee (although his first dog, Napoleon, "Nappie" for short, was a medium-sized mutt).  To Simon, lap dogs are comfy.  You can hold them while you read a book.  They don't take up too much room in the bed.
    Soon after we moved into our house, we visited a neighbor with a big dog.  There were bunny-sized tufts of dog hair in the corners of her living room and dirty smears across her hardwood floor that could only have come from a wet, filthy dog sliding with joy into his owner's lap.  I started thinking of the cost of feeding a big dog, and all the exercise it would need.  And all the poop I'd have to pick up in the backyard.
    "That's why you need a small dog," my mother-in-law said, when I expressed this last concern to her.  "They just leave little Tootsie Rolls in the grass."
     In spite of my alarm at the thought of poops camouflaged as Tootsie Rolls on my lawn (after all, I know a little girl who would be delighted to find candy in the grass), I am now sold on the idea of a small dog.  The smallest dog. A Yorkie, to be specific.  When I told Simon this, he said,
     "A Yorkie is a piece of gristle with fur."
     Perhaps, but a piece of gristle that doesn't eat a fifty-pound sack of dog food each week or need a nightly five-mile walk.