Bad Dog

I babysat my neighbor's dog this morning while she took care of her mother, who hasn't been doing so hot. This is sad, because her mother, like my neighbor, is absolutely hilarious. My favorite quip from her today at lunch regarding Audubon Zoo: "Well, in my day they had dinosaurs in cages."

Unfortunately, my neighbor has pretty much the worst dog in the world. It's not that she hasn't tried, she has. He's just one of those dogs that is about 80 pounds of solid muscle, insane, and eats cheese that hasn't even been unwrapped.

I like to think of myself as Chip's fun aunt. Today I became Chip's-Not-So-Fun-Aunt-Who-Is-Generous-With-Application-of-Alumni-Magazine-to-Canine-Backside.

I realized what it must be like when you're a parent and you're put in the awkward position of having to discipline your kid's crappy friend. Like you welcome him into your home, give him oreos, and the next thing you know you're driving home from work and the little brat and your child have almost blown up your house because brat wanted to use gasoline to draw a pentagram in your driveway and then light it on fire. Except the bad kid is also humping your own kids, and they're not too impressed.

So. I thought, despite my neighbor's harrowing dog discipline stories (which I thought were exaggerated), I would be able to handle it. Not true.

Here is what he managed to do in the span of the first ten minutes he came over for a visit:

1. He peed on the jasmine at the bottom of my stairs.

2. He managed to leap on top of my stove (thankfully not on) and topple my dishrack (thankfully empty).

3. He ate all of my dogs' food, drank all of their water and then proceeded to slobber it all over my kitchen.

4. He jumped on me while I was cleaning and tore my back pocket out.

5. He knocked my little dog down the steep stairs to my apartment.

6. He peed on the jasmine at the top of my stairs.

7. He ate a bunch of potting soil and promptly puked it up on my just cleaned kitchen floor.

7. He started to lift his leg up to squirt on my kitchen cart, and when I caught him in the act, the motherfucker rolled his eyes at me.

My neighbor came back over to find her dog trussed to the post at the bottom of my stairs with three leashes so he could not move and fuck anything else up. I bet she's still laughing.