Miss Ashley Pants

“Whatever.”

“Fine. All’s I’m saying is that I’m going to take a dump right where you’re standing. Like, as soon as you leave.”

This is the conversation my ten year old shih-tzu and I have every day before I lock her behind the walls of my apartment prison.

It used to be a lot more dramatic – clutching my pantlegs in her jaws, running out the door, hiding under the bed in a room she knows she’s not allowed to be during my absence to intentionally present an obstacle to my leaving. I’d come home to pulverized blinds, wondering what kind of an NBA player vertical she must have in order to reach them when they’re drawn and she’s a furry garden gnome. Then when I shut my front door, I would observe a four foot horizontal border of fresh claw marks. Finally, if I’d left that morning in enough of a crazed state to forget to shut the pantry door where my garbage bin sits, I could trust that said bin would be laying sideways with all of its contents meticulously removed and every square inch of my cooking room floor laquered with regurgitated coffee grounds. Experts call this – along with the carpet covered in fecal finger painting – “acting out”.

It took me a while to figure out what she needed.

She had her food, had her water, and even had a bone.

You know, science says that’s all your dog really cares about – or “remembers” – survival related stuff. That they don’t think that much about you after you leave, and that their memory is reserved for the more crucial-to-staying-alive matters. Somehow I disagree with that. Partially because these conclusions are still at the “educated guess” phase. But also because of experience – how my dog changed when I did. She went from being like this dude’s pup…

…to barely giving me the disinterested, “Oh hey” your sig. other issues when you get home after a long day, while not even looking up from their laptop mostly because they didn’t even realize you’d walked in the door until you say hello for the fourteenth time. Except for her, nowadays it’s that cursory glance in my direction – before she goes back to gnawing her rawhide. But it wasn’t always that way. That rawhide (and the variety of other noms) was only half the answer to my DIY style Cesar Milan-ing of her. Sure, she had her food and water, but she was still restless. And when I first started trying out new bones on her, that wasn’t enough. I’d hand it to her, and she’d throw it on the ground Samberg style, looking up at me anxiously – knowing I was leaving. That was when I realized, it was me. You can tell when somebody’s anxious by their body language. For example, what would you do if you were sitting there watching a movie with a friend, boyfriend, family member – and suddenly they got up, started rushing around, and then left abruptly without telling you why?

It dawned on me in the past year or so that that’s how it must feel for dogs, since they can’t speak in language and ask you what’s going on. So, they have to rely on physical interaction. Since you and whoever you live with are kinda their whole world, the atmosphere you generate is the mood they kinda pick up on too. Without getting all airy fairy, I’ll say that when I was pessimistically depressed about my physical maladies, my dog was lethargic too. She got sick. And almost died. Her recovery and my recovery became a kind of parallel thing. As I resolved to work my ass off to get functional, she found a will to go on too. I suppose, that was when I realized how dogs (much like my niece who hates me because she knows I’m terrified I’m gonna drop her whenever I hold her) tend to pick up on whatever human fumes we give off that correspond with an emotion. So that meant I had to change – or at least issue her the kinda goodbye she deserves as the best roommate I’ve ever had. One day I tried it – the whole nine – cooing, ear scratches, “good girl-ing”, and an excited happy tone followed by the offer of a meaty bone. With a wagging tail, she took it and sat down to enjoy it.

When I came back later that day, she was still polishing it off.

“The fcck did you get home?”

I’ve had a lot of these sorta mood-interaction based epiphanies with my dog. She’s a really good indicator of how I’m being when I’m not self aware enough to sort it out for myself, and a fantastic example of just how deep an effect our mood has on other people (who knew Maya Angelou’s it’s-not-what-you-say-but-how-you-make-people-feel quote applied to pets too?). And as my mood’s generally driven by my ego, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t at least a little hurt at the thought that she doesn’t spend at least a few seconds pining my absence after I depart. Lucky for me, though, there is proof that she does give a shit when I go.

She definitely gives at least two giant steamy shits. Maybe three.

One of which gets eaten before I return.