What is good about having a pet?

Even if I live without housemates, I’ll never live without a pet. In my current situation, I cannot have one unless I keep it in my room all the time. Having a litter box would be impossible because of the smell being too loud, and we already have the maximum amount of dogs on one side of the house (the owners). If I got one, too, the county might notice because of our addresses.

Therefore, I am grateful for Zac and Oliver, who is a dog.

Editor’s Note:

I say it exactly that way because I want new readers to know he’s a dog and for “Oliver, who is a dog” to be something that people think automatically because they’ve heard it so many times and now it’s funny. My inspiration comes from classical music. You can wake up a classical fan in the middle of the night and say “Sir Neville Marriner.” They’ll say “conducting The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields” before their eyes open.

(That line just made Jack laugh. I know it.)

Zac, for those just joining us, is my boyfriend. I joke that I’m his “twinkie bitch boyfriend,” but that’s because I’m closer to that stereotype when I’m with him because we don’t look heterosexual. We’re not building a life together unless the stars align in terms of being happy just as I am. I figure that it’s not up to other people whether I lived like a monk before I met them and it’s ridiculous to think I should have been “waiting for you.” I’m not Blanche, I’m Dorothy. I am sure that if Dana and I hadn’t been such knobheads to each other, I’d be joking with/about the fact that she’s Stan.

It took a lot to realize that I did a lot of negative things, but I am not a bad person. It’s a distinction that people have to make or they’ll hate themselves forever. Being a narcissist is not owning your shit because your ego would never let you admit you did anything in the first place. Narcissists feed on your love and your fear because they know they have control. It starts out small so that you give up power willingly and not notice you’re about to be a boiling frog.

It’s good to have a pet when I’m thinking this deeply about something and writing it down, because stimming to soothe myself is not limited to the feel of the keys. I don’t write at Zac’s much (sometimes I housesit or stay the afternoon to work in silence while he’s at the office). When I do, it is often sitting on the couch with Oliver’s head on or near my lap. He fits his muzzle around my keyboard.

At no time to I stop thinking about something deeply, so Oliver is a good companion when I’m walking. He interrupts my pain signals by having to keep my attention on him (also why a stick shift car is basically an ADA accomodation for me). I’m stimming through every sense and not one, keeping the parts of AuDHD that suck to a minimum. I don’t have demand avoidance with Oliver because I enforce all the rules in a rigid system, I’m not walking in the dark about how Zac trains him. Therefore, I am not spiraling out over what the demand is because I have clear written instructions for the whole process, including a credit card that will work at his vet so I don’t have to panic about how much it will cost if we get hurt.

I have to watch for Oliver’s age and neurodivergence, because he has anxiety around strangers. He also comes off as an asshole while frightened of his environment, but relaxes just like I do when his sensory perception is turned down to normal. Oliver’s not just a dog because I see the same patterns in his behavior that I do in mine, making our relationship free and easy because we understand each other. He understands English to the point where I can say things with syntax instead of direct commands and he’ll still pick it up.

“I need you to get off the couch and go lay over there” vs. “Sit”

Oliver introduced me to the reason it’s important I have a personal/service dog (depending on the plan with my neurologist/therapist/etc.) because it helped my mental state so much. I would also rather have a cat in terms of responsibility, but they only help with stimming when I’m anxious at home. A personal dog can go more places with you, and a service dog can go everywhere.

I would want something like an Italian Greyhound for portability and still being tall enough to handle more challenging walks. I prefer bigger dogs than that, but I cannot carry them…. not important for a couch potato, but Zac and I like to hike. So, small, but just big *enough.* When I get said dog, we will be going to training *immediately,* whether it’s Bryn or a class. This is because of anything that bugs me about dog owners, it’s having little dogs that are terrors and not expecting them to behave like big dogs.

It’s annoying for everyone, for me, a sensory nightmare. I don’t want my dog to breathe without my permission, and I can do it all with positive reinforcement. One of the best things you can do for your puppy is train it in sign language (babies, too). This is because before they have age and experience, they react to everything. Whatever energy is in the room, they pick it up. You need to be able to stop your dog from digging, fighting, jumping, etc. without losing your shit at the dog because if you don’t, the bad behavior will only ramp up because of your adrenaline. Not being verbal takes the energy in the room out of the equation (for the most part).

Editor’s Note

For your baby, they can communicate long before they’re verbal. They just don’t know how without signs. It keeps the crying and tantrums to a minimum when you know how to ask for more milk. They’ll be able to speak in sentences before they’re into toddler diapers. It makes communication easier when a look and similar cries aren’t all the intel you can get.

That’s a thing it’s good to know *before* you have a pet….. whether you’re the kind of person that can be so dedicated to the cause of making your dog behave that you don’t get lazy, because you can derail it by being inconsistent *once.* It’s why I’m so much more into cats. It’s not that I don’t like dogs more, it’s that I have the executive function to take care of a cat and I’m not going to bet against it until I have a partner who also wants a dog or someone I’ve hired because I can’t manage the relentlessness of its care. I don’t want to bite off more than I can chew, and I won’t because a dog’s life isn’t sitting in my house all the time. The point of having a dog is to get me to leave it.

I already know its name should be “Sidney Virginia Bristdog-Woof.” Virginia Woolf is one of my favorite writers and the joke is obvious, Virginia Hall is my third favorite real  female spy, and Sidney Bristow is my fictional favorite.

Julia Child and Jonna Mendez are first and second. Don’t let Julia fool you with that “I was just a file clerk” crap. She is a tough motherfucker. I have a feeling that after working with spies, culinary school wasn’t that hard. Jonna is my second favorite because she would endorse the message regarding the first and Julia came long before her- OSS in WWII. Jonna was Cold War/Middle East terrorism…. but I honestly think she has a lot more areas of operation in her portfolio because disguises vary by climate. I doubt she was only limited to Eastern Europe and the Middle East because of it. I also know that at one point she spent time in somewhere like India or Pakistan because one of the chapters in Spy Dust locates her “on the subcontinent.” However, she could have been talking about someplace like southern Africa as well, and that’s what makes her books fun.

She is also a person who *loves* animals and would love appearing in an entry *about* dogs. I am positive she would rather write about dogs some days than her old job. But her old job makes for interesting stories that can’t be duplicated, so I’m glad she focuses on it. Having a dog is universal. Being Chief of Disguise at CIA is not.

I can say this surface level stuff because we actually do know each other on a superficial level. As in, I don’t have any more inside scoop than the rest of her readers, but I do enjoy hearing her live, talking afterwards, and sending her things I’ve written. It’s how I know she’s lost her dog within the last couple of years, but I don’t know if she’s gotten another one yet.

She would think “Virginia Woof” was funny even if you guys don’t. 😉

It’s funny how I can connect the love of a dog to even my special interest because so many people know its power. We all love our dogs because they can love us back in the way another adult can’t. No terms, limitations, provisos, clauses. No divorce unless you initiate it, and those people are generally wrong about it being time. I do not understand giving up a dog when the situation isn’t completely untenable, and I don’t understand keeping an animal alive at all costs because you think you can’t live without them. There are too many homeless pets to grieve long. I say I won’t get another pet. I won’t mean it two weeks later because I don’t like living without a pet.

I’m glad I don’t have to. Loving Zac is loving Oliver, who is a dog.