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.

Everybody's Favorite Shiba Inu, an update

As her glaucoma has gotten worse, Everybody's Favorite Shiba Inu has become more willing to ignore whatever my wife or I tell her to do. This is annoying when it comes to things like not attempting to jump on the couch when it isn't there, or not positioning herself in the worst of places to be underfoot. You'd think this dog hadn't lived here for the past ten years, that the basic configuration of furniture hadn't been the same for the last seven, and the specific arrangement hadn't been the same since she had actual eyesight.

Then again, sometimes there's a tornado warning at 5:00 in the morning, and your dog, who is not frightened of storms and never gets up when you do, comes quietly but immediately to your side and sits there, adamantly refusing to move until you go back to sleep. She will probably not listen to me at all for the rest of the day, but it's nice to know that if I need it, she'll be there before I even have to ask.

Everybody's Favorite Shiba Inu, An Ongoing Series

Every morning, without fail, she is happy to see me--tail wagging, trying to sit as close to me as possible. If I sleep in, she comes over to my side of the bed and waits for me to get up (and paces and huffs, so I know she's there). It's been eight hours since she last saw me! That's practically forever.

I suspect I will never love another dog quite the way I love this one.

It's been less than 48 hours, but Everybody's Favorite Shiba Inu is doing her best to prevent me from leaving again by laying across/on top of various parts of my body, so that I can't move. At the moment: right arm.

The leading candidate for Everybody's Favorite Shiba Inu's motto, and also good words to live by.

Of course the model for Menswear Dog is a Shiba Inu. If you want fashion-forward, it's the only way to go.

True story: Everybody's Favorite Shiba Inu has turned me, however improbably, into a dog person. Which makes things get a little misty when I read something like this.

Also a true story: when I was dating my now-fiancee, she took Everybody's Favorite Shiba Inu to get a teeth cleaning and have a dead tooth extracted; the dog was pretty out of it when she got home. That evening, I came over, and was surprised that she neither barked at me nor came over to greet me at the door (it was the phase where she was transitioning between the two forms of greeting). She didn't because she couldn't: she had barely been able to get herself on the couch, despite my then-girlfriend trying to keep her from attempting. When I came over to the couch, she lifted up her head a little, and wagged her tail two or three times, very slowly. This was, I was told, the first time she had wagged her tail all day. That's the point where I knew I had been accepted.

In summary: dogs are the best. My condolences to the Munger family.

I had the chance to visit Everybody's Favorite Shiba Inu for the first time since I left for Chicago this past weekend. Her reaction was pretty much as I was expecting: she barked at me when she first saw me, and then got so excited she would ram her head into me whenever I stopped petting her. It's nice to be missed.

Today in teaching: students were remarkably unperturbed that Socrates' favored metaphor for the soldiers responsible for defending the city is "dog." After much coaxing, only one student was willing to suggest that perhaps expecting a human being to act like an animal isn't the best possible thing.

Also, one student suggested that dogs were an apt metaphor since they protect their owners and their possessions and defend against intruders. Naturally, I rejoindered with a mention of dog-shaming.com. I neglected to mention any of Everybody's Favorite Shiba Inu's exploits, though one almost did end up being submitted.

Everybody's Favorite Shiba Inu is a relatively good traveler, it must be said. She is also not very happy that she no longer gets to sit in the front seat (just one of the many ways I have displaced her). Consequently, she gets up to the front of the car at every available opportunity, even if one or the other of us are just going to tell her to get in the back again immediately. Here she is, at a gas station, taking her owner's seat while desperately, desperately awaiting her return. (The dog has some mommy issues/separation anxiety)

Dog-blogging, a first attempt:

Everybody's Favorite Shiba Inu is curled up next to me, very happy to have her humans back. I am fairly certain she will try to sleep on us tonight to keep us from leaving her again. Not having ever been much of a dog person, this type of affection is entirely new to me. And kind of strange. (Then again, The Cat was pretty happy to see us, too)