Over the five years Erin and I have been together, she’s made no secret of her desire to get a dog. An animal lover myself, I wasn’t against the idea of getting a dog (we already have two cats). What I wasn’t certain about was my willingness to make the commitment having a canine companion entails. Cats are relatively self-sufficient- change their litter box, make sure they have food and water- while dogs are anything but. It took me awhile to wrap my head around the idea of adopting a dog- my argument was that I rather enjoyed being immature and self-absorbed. We don’t have children (I’ve never had any desire), and I liked having the ability to be spontaneous and leave the house for a day or two or three. The cats would be fine, a dog not so much.
Erin finally wore me down (not that I offered much resistance) and we adopted Magnus, a 16-lb. Chiweenie whose father must have been the Energizer Bunny. Overnight we became concerned with things like walks and training and our conversation took a decided downturn- “Did he poop?” has become a conversational mainstay. Yes, things changed for us, and we both quickly fell in love with Magnus. He’s a great companion, good with people and other dogs, and generally a threat only to himself. If you check my Instagram account, you can tell how crazy I am about Magnus by the number of photos of him I’ve posted. Even Erin thinks it’s a bit over the top.
I’m pretty OK with that.
One of the interesting things about having a small dog is that because they’re so low to the ground you have almost NO control over what they consume- and there’s almost literally nothing Magnus won’t put in his mouth. When we’re out for a walk, it can feel as I’m walking a four-legged vacuum cleaner, as he licks the grass and frequently picks up things that he proceeds to chews- and sometimes swallow before I can bend down and pull them from his mouth. The things he puts in his mouth range from the benign to the just plain gross, but he’s a dog and clearly not burdened by the same sort of standards I am.
Sometimes I find myself wondering just how safe some of the things he hoovers up really are. I’ve become much more attuned to being careful about things I drop on the floor- pills, food- and picking them up quickly. It’s helpful to know what sorts of foodstuffs are the most dangerous to dogs and why, even though it can be difficult to understand what I should be concerned about and what I can do in the event of an emergency.
Since dogs use their mouths in the same way we humans use our hands, it can be difficult to know the difference between “I just want to see what this is” and “Hey! I think I’ll swallow it whole!!” Because his head is a scant few inches above ground level, Magnus can get to something much faster than I can, but at least so far he hasn’t attempted to swallow (or actually ingested) anything dangerous.
In the eight months we’ve had Magnus, we’ve become astonishingly attached to him, and it can be difficult to remember what life was like before he came along (no doubt the cats would like to permanently revisit those halcyon days). Someone once told me that having a dog makes a house a home…and we’re discovering just how true that is.
Now if we could just figure out how to keep him from flipping out every time he sees a cat or a squirrel….
