Elvis is a cute little guy with a big head. I'm not making a metaphor, he literally has a huge head. I'd wager his body mass is 50% head. He's a little top heavy. He also makes a lot of noise and I have to take care of him so he can poo.
Basically, he's our Training Baby. He's a little bit more mobile and self-reliant than an actual baby, and I hear you're not allowed to put a baby in a crate all day when you go to work -- but I am responsible for another lifeform. And just like a baby, he can't quite lift his head on his own.
It's not a perfect training scenario, but it at least teaches you to be somewhat responsible. If taking care of a baby is a 10, taking care of a dog is about a 3. Taking care of a cat is a -1.*
*Not only our cats perfectly able to survive without you, when you take care of a cat, you are increasing the Cat Population by 1. The universe suffers.
Anyway, Elvis realized that he wasn't providing much of challenge for us in our baby preparations, and being the good dog that he is, he decided to help us out. Elvis decided to go a day without eating any food because, well, he's a dog and he's forgetful. He was busy with trying to perfect his scratching technique. He's almost got it, too. Then, when he went out for his evening constitutional, he decided that he was hungry after all, so he should eat a clump of grass.
Now, I don't know if you're familiar with the dietary habits of the American canine, but when my dog eats a clump of grass on an empty stomach, that's when his stomach decides to rebel. Elvis was courteous enough to wait until he got inside to throw up, though. He's a team player that way.
It was time for bed, but Elvis couldn't sleep, spending the whole night trying to throw up the entire contents of his stomach. Now, when you have a pet that's throwing up in the middle of the night, your only real concern is that he throws up on the tile instead of the carpet for cleaning purposes.
But the night was pretty much a constant cycle of this cycle:
STEP ONE -- Dog whines, wakes me up.
STEP TWO -- I comfort dog, he lies back down
STEP THREE -- He whines again and starts making noises that were used on the soundtrack of Alien before the chest bursting scene. I ignore him.
STEP FOUR -- Posette openly wishes for meteor to hit dog.
STEP FIVE -- I get out of bed, take dog downstairs.
STEP SIX -- He makes a few laps around the kitchen island until he finds a good spot. I make sure his head is over tile not carpet. He throws up. I clean it up.
STEP SEVEN -- He paws at door. I take him outside. While looking like he's going to do his Doggy Business, he head fakes and then eats more grass. I curse violently.
STEP EIGHT -- I take him back inside and we go back to bed.
STEP NINE -- Dog whines, wakes me up. And the cycle continues.
This went out, quite literally, all night long. I never got more than an hour of uninterrupted sleep.
In the morning, he ate his breakfast, jumped in my lap and licked me in the face. If he wasn't so cute, I would drown him in a river. Lucky for him, all of the rivers in Dallas are currently dried up, so I'd have to drive to the Red River to find a suitable river to drown him in.
It was like having a sparring partner. If you want to compete in a boxing match, you need to spar a little bit. Work on the fundamentals. And that's what Elvis is doing. He's my Baby Preparation sparring partner. Just working on the up all night fundamentals.
Gosh, I'm so lucky.
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