Sunday, July 16, 2006

I Can't Get No Respect

As I've said time and time again, my dog is no MENSA candidate. Cute? Yes. Big brown eyes? Yes. Good with the rawhide? Oh yes. But, she is, for all intents and purposes, a badger-hunter with no badgers to hunt. Dachshunds were bred to eliminate all badgers from the land, and poor thing ended up in suburban Indiana where there is nary a badger to be seen, at least not in a tiny intergrated suburb in Fort Wayne, the best we do is chipmunks. To add insult to injury, the poor dog isn't even a standard sized dachshund, but has been bred to be small, wee, teeny. She isn't even catagorized as a "miniature," but weighs so little that she is considered a "toy." Now, tell me that wouldn't give you a complex?!?

I have accepted that I am not the "alpha dog" in this house. This was further reinforced by Maisie walking across the kitchen table in full sight of me, even though she knows that toy dachshunds are strictly prohibited in this home from setting even one paw on the kitchen table. And the whole time she merely looked at me proudly as if to say, "Look at me, aren't I so tall up here on the table, where the alpha dog won't let me be?"

I have accepted that I am not the "alpha dog," but I still grapple with the fact that apparently I am, yay, merely the "omega dog."

The most commonly heard phrase in our house is this, spoken by one weak and flailing omega dog voice..."R., will you call/tell/yell at/inform/punish/ Maisie? She isn't listening to me, instead she is peeing in her bed/chewing her bone/sniffing the cat's butt/eating a spider she found on the floor/chasing a fly." And R., the one who wasn't entirely sure about having a dog in the first place merely has to enuciate the word, "Maisie..." (he hits it really strong on the "M" sound...)and she submits. Literally, she pauses and cowers at his voice.

Secretly, I whisper to her sometimes, deeply into her soft floppy ears. I murmur, "I'm the one who wanted you. If it weren't for me you wouldn't be here...I can be both alpha and omega to you, for I am a minister and understand these Biblical phrases." But this seems to do little to reinforce my status in the dog hierarchy.

I simply get no respect here on Strathdon Drive.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

But, she is, for all intents and purposes, a badger-hunter with no badgers to hunt. Dachshunds were bred to eliminate all badgers from the land, and poor thing ended up in suburban Indiana where there is nary a badger to be seen.

You have just enlightened me about our part dachshund and whatever else he is. We have holes all over our back yard from that dog. And don't feel bad I am not the alpha either.