I received this in my inbox on Thursday:

Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2005 12:47:50 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Glin Dog"
Subject: Hi Mom
To: ejshea@ejshea.com

xoxo
Glin

It's probably safe to say that Erik and I have crossed a line from which there is no returning, don't you think? When you're creating Yahoo email accounts for the dog, it's almost guaranteed that you're setting yourself up to alienate people and retard your social life.

As first weeks of any experience goes, ours with Glin had its bumps. We've become more intimate with her bodily fluids than we'd like. Erik has stepped in dog poop not once but twice, once immediately after taking her out. She barfed all over my favorite t-shirt on the car ride home from Erik's mom's place. I have had this shirt since I was 13, people. It's that kind of favorite shirt.

We knew we were really in love with her when instead of wanting to throttle the cause of such destruction, we just feel so awful for her.

Last night, after having drinks to celebrate Rachelle's 30th birthday, an adventure that had me out of the house for only three hours, I came home to what will forever go down in our family as its first Official Crisis.

Glin got sick in her box (or, Hangar, as Erik likes to call the crate since she's a "flying dog"), and it was all over her, the box and the stench was unlike anything to assault my nostrils since college when I dated a guy who lived in a house with five of his fraternity brothers.

I scurried over to her box, let her out and had to immediately swoop her up and take her outside. Outside, of course, where she began to roll around in the dirt, exacerbating the entire situation, leaving her a puke-, poop-, urine- and dirt-matted mess of a pup. I brought her back in, stripped down to my bra and panties, then grabbed the dog shampoo.

Despite being a Golden Retriever, Glin is not quite friendly with water as of the moment and the whole "Get In The Tub And Get Doused With Soap" routine didn't go over well with our girl. So I'm struggling with the wet, smelly dog when I hear Erik bust through the house, call out our names and bound into the bathroom where, within a flash, he proceeded to get sick.

In our tiny, teeny bathroom nearing midnight, my little family was reduced to a puddle of pathetic.

With Erik sick and Glin attempting to crawl out of the bathtub, I gave up the ghost. In five minutes, I had Glin completely rinsed off, wrapped in a towel and my husband in his pajamas drinking water.

Moments later, Glin crawled up into my lap, fur still damp from the bath, as Erik and I sat on the floor looking at each other in disbelief of what had just taken place, completely shell-shocked like two Army buddies who'd together just experienced something horrific. Glin shivered and squaked and scratched behind her ears before discovering her tail which led to a frenzied battle between it and her mouth. She repeatedly rolled around on the floor, determined to once and for all capture that wily tail.

"This is totally worth it," I said, laughing.

"Totally," he replied.

Posted by Erin at 11:08 AM | filed under: Glin

comments