yappy

While Gma heads down to the wilds of Omaha I am taking care of the house and dog. I know that we were fortunate to get a dog that is already trained and pretty good in the house and not too large and all that jazz but there's something about small yappy dogs that I just don't find appealing.

Perhaps my distaste has more to do with my championing of the low-maintenance approach to most things (from my appearance to my plants to my diet and, well, pretty much every other aspect of my life). Perhaps I am merely balking at the fact that this dog has to be walked thrice a day and, when put in the backyard, tied on a rope (which action includes subsequent untangling of rope from various objects in the yard and elsewhere at various intervals throughout the day).

In my previous experience with the canine species (specifically those under my care) the extent of one's necessary involvement was the placing of food outside the door at various periods throughout the day. Since this generally fell under the cleaning of scraps from a meal, it could almost be seen as a chore that wasn't even directly connected with the animal. Now I have always enjoyed spending time far above and beyond the quick shove of the food bowl out the door kind of relationship with my dogs but it was always a voluntary task. I didn't have to take the dog to do its business. It was always mature enough to handle anything like that itself. And I most certainly never had to pick up after my dogs. I am beginning to see why my parents held out with the rule of no pets in the city and am not quite so upset with them that we didn't get a dog until we had moved into a place with lots of room for them to roam.

It is much the same way with plants (as just one other example). I love gardening but give me a houseplant and I'll kill it. I do this not entirely willingly but then perhaps it is my subconscious telling me to free myself of encumbrances that makes me neglect them to death. I don't mind other people having houseplants but I see no use for them myself especially when I forget about them so readily. The beauty of a garden outdoors is that there is no need to water and you get half the year off tending it (at least when one is this far north).

However, when I am looking after someone else's things I generally take better care of them and have not killed one of Gma's houseplants yet so there is hope for poor Haley...