Because some days it's the little things, like remembering to distribute four pills between five dogs in three cups of expensive (almost prescription) kibble because you're not usually the parent that feeds the dogs first thing in the morning.
Barely three months into this journey and I needed a break. The blog was not the stress relief I had hoped it would be, or perhaps there was simply too much stress for a simple journal to release. In either case, I simply identified the problems, stopped myself from engaging in the parts of things I was no longer finding fulfilling or enjoyable, and did something else instead for a while.
It wasn't long ago that an adaptation like that would have felt, to me, like failure, and I can't deny that there have been moments the last few weeks that even this little project niggled at me.
But to be realistic, I work six days a week helping other people and their dogs. It's reasonable and perfectly healthy to need a break from the way things are once in a while. As long as our three hooligans have their needs met, I'm far from a failure. And honestly, I think that mindset of "Anything less than perfection is failure," is part of why there are over 40,000 suicides in the U.S. yearly according to the National Institute of Mental Health, almost 50,000 in their most recent reporting year (2018). And the vast majority of those are in people between the ages of 10 and 50 years.
I can't imagine that an entire world worrying about a terrible respiratory virus for over a year has been an improvement in those numbers.
In that respect, at least, we are blessed. Either we both had a mild case of it around this time last year, or "Wash your Hands, Watch your Distance, Wear a Mask," has worked for us. Life with dogs like ours is isolating anyway in some respects, so having the kinds of dogs in our home who don't do well with strangers has made us safer in a way people wouldn't naturally expect. It's not just "Good luck to the asshole that tries to boot our door at two in the morning!", it's the fact that we've never lived the life where people were welcome to just show up on the porch with some drinks or a pizza and hang out for hours. We would welcome human friends, of course, but MacShane and MacGyver would NOT.
But to think that, while we enjoy the relative peace and companionship these guys give us, that they may be part of why I've still been "an essential worker" all this time and not gotten sick is a definite shift in my perspective on juggling crazy dogs during a pandemic.
Our dogs are a challenge, every day, raising constant questions.
"Which one's outside?"
"Can you sit with McKie while I let McShane hang out in the living room?" followed quickly by, "Give me a second, I have to crate McGyver so he doesn't open that package with my new pants in it." (Because when you've starved, anything plastic might have food in it, and that's a habit he's never going to stop.)
"Which one went potty last?" followed by "Shit, I don't know. Do you have to pee buddy? Let's start with McKie and I can take him into the bathroom with me while you let the other two out." But then, "Is it safe to let him out, or is the neighbor guy out there right now?"
And my favorite, "Shit, hang on! The neighbor's cat isn't over the fence yet!" (And my least favorite response, "Too late!")
For basically the entire month of February, I wondered if this Crate and Rotate Life was making my already somewhat anxious personality that much worse. Then I realized that at least with the dogs, I was channeling my default setting, "Worry about something, anything, all the time," into something far more productive than playing through workplace bullying scenarios in my head before I go to sleep.
In August of last year, shelters, rescue groups, and even those terrible dog auctions all over Missouri were reporting record demand of "product", as the owner/operator of Heartland Sales Auction referred to the dogs passing through his business on their way to a life of neglect and rebreeding until the females can no longer produce, by "licensed breeders" (aka: puppy millers, aka: dog abusers, aka: the USDA's bread and butter).
The $1,300 toy poodle puppy one tech exec's family in California purchased when local rescues didn't meet their demand for a dog fast enough is probably already an orphan, of her canine parents at least. The humans don't seem to notice or care according to their interview snippet in an article from Aug. 12, 2020 in the Washington Post. They got what they wanted, right? A blank slate; the "perfect puppy" to keep themselves and their child occupied when they can't go out and do "normal" things.
But what will 'normal' look like for those dogs in three years, after wide-spread vaccination has lessened the risk of SARS-COVID-2 related death to most of the U.S. population? And why would a short wait for things like toilet paper and medical masks make perfect sense in a pandemic, but adding a dog to the family be an entitlement?
I'm confused and disheartened by that attitude toward dogs. But, then again, my normal is so much different from the rest of the world's it may have saved both my life and my sanity.
The larger implications of that situation settle heavily.
And now I have to secure two dogs so the third can go out and pee, The Dance of the Potty Trip Fairy.
