Everybody's Favorite Shiba Inu, Lying Liars Who Lie Edition

Taking Everybody's Favorite Shiba Inu to the kennel is one of the unfortunate features of having a dog and occasionally having to fly far away for extended periods of time. She does not particularly like the kennel, though, bless her heart, she often doesn't figure out that she is being taken there until she's in the car. Her fear has a performative aspect to it: she will sit in the car just fine on her own, and only begin shaking uncontrollably when I attempt to comfort her. My wife, in her infinite wisdom, told me to ignore this behavior: as soon as someone from the kennel comes and takes her away, she's fine. Some of the fear or concern is genuine, but some of it's an act. In either event, she has to stay at the kennel, so no point in dragging it out.

(This also seems like an appropriate moment to bring up the theory I developed during the year I was working in Chicago and coming home every other weekend: she got so excited to see me because she forgot I existed from five minutes after I left the house until the moment I returned.)

When I pick Everybody's Favorite Shiba Inu up from the kennel, she is usually very out of sorts: lots of shaking and whining. I tend to think it's the trauma of having to be apart from us. The thought of that trauma makes me feel bad, though this feeling is exhausted by the end of a 30-minute car trip home: a constant 30 minutes of whimpers, Shiba screams, and attempts to get as close to me as possible. The kennel, in the hokey manner of kennels everywhere, gives us a doggy report card, which I ignore, because it is usually boilerplate about how great your dog was. Literally: the text is almost always "Everybody's Favorite Shiba Inu was great!" and the reality of one's dog seems to contradict that.

I noticed a few days ago that there was a lot more writing on the form than usual. In it, the handler talks about how Everybody's Favorite Shiba Inu would join him on the sofa every morning to watch tv, get petted, and share his biscuit (as opposed to home, where she never gets human food and is rarely allowed on the couch). I also noticed that Everybody's Favorite Shiba Inu won us a $10 credit for being voted the best dog in her section.

So, basically, the dog has been playing us.