Because Dogs Are People Too

The whole concept of Hallmark Holidays has been on my mind. There's a day for everything, and boy, if you miss it, it'll come around again next year. Because it's not only the National Day Of [fillintheblank], it's the ANNUAL National Day Of.

On the other hand, the NDO you're most interested in might recur tomorrow, because no one's in charge of this "National Day Of" business... it's not trademarked, or service marked or otherwise the intellectual property of anyone as far as I can tell. And my research was intensive: I Googled it.

Probably someone somewhere knows how to make money on this. After all, there's gobs of money to be made in blogging (so I've been told). It's no less likely that the National Day Of Raking In The Bucks is right around my proverbial corner.

ANYWHAT, today, according to my holiday-laden calendar, is National Bring Your Dog To Work Day.


Look at that dog. I had to search pretty hard to find some pictures of him. I have mentioned before that he seems to be in the background of every picture, but it now comes to light that I never set out to take a picture of him. Poor, poor Jake. (Name changed to protect the innocent. Or not. He kind of gets in the trash a lot.)

So National Bring Your Dog To Work Day is like every other day in our house. YAY. The EGE takes Jake (yes, it's his real name; he's named after our former foster dog; we're unoriginal that way) to work every day. Woo Hoo! Hurray! I am the luckiest girl on the planet!

It's not that I don't love the dog. I do. I have to say that or my children will stage a protest and refuse to eat dinner.

I love the dog, but I do not love his actions. He is a retriever and it shows in all sorts of obnoxious ways. A few weeks ago I read a lovely post of Barb's in which she photojournaled her dog's retrieval of the paper. How helpful! How All-American! Barb's husband even told her how to tell me how to teach Jake to do such a marvelous chore daily. Unfortunately, Jake is too smart to be that helpful.

He certainly knows how to retrieve, and this is my main reason for rejoicing as soon as he leaves the house with the EGE every morning. He spends every waking hour retrieving. Dirty socks. Our front and back doors are usually littered with these gifts, and a nine-hour break from repeatedly returning socks to their proper hamper residences is welcome. When there is no dirty laundry, Jake will settle for clean laundry. He picks up folded towels and carries them to me. He drives me up the retrieving wall.

Once I even called a pet counselor, I mean dog trainer, who told me that Jake was merely looking for a job to do. Um, psychic, hunh?

Now that Jake goes to the office every day, he has a favorite drafter. This hurts the EGE's dog-owning ego a little, maybe. The favorite drafter runs at lunch and leaves his running shoes at the back door of the office. That is, he tries to leave them there, but of course the dog keeps retrieving them. Don't you just love a dog who keeps his job consistent?

Come to think of it, National Take Your Dog To Work Day might've been meant for me. Maybe Jake was trying to remind me to catch up on the laundry. Don't tell my husband, willya?