Belated Birthday

I let Biscuit’s birthday pass last week without much fanfare. She turned two on the second. It was late in the day before I realized it and we were iced in most of the week, so I didn’t make it out for the new squeaky toy I had planned to buy her. Pat pulled out a big rawhide bone so she could have a special treat that evening.

I’ve never been big on celebrating pets’ birthdays. Partly because I never knew their actual birthdays, only a guess at which month they were born based on the vet’s estimate. Even so, I felt bad about almost missing Biscuit’s b-day this year. I feel like she’s gotten the short end of the stick, and I’m to blame.

She was a few weeks old when we brought her home, only a couple months after our beloved Clyde passed. I wrote about it on her first birthday last year, so I won’t bore you with the details again.

I don’t know if Biscuit came to us too soon, while my grief was so raw I was tender to the touch, but she and I have never completely meshed well.

I hate to say it, but “the dog” grates my nerves, and I think it’s all because I compare her to Clyde, two totally different dogs. Clyde was small, sweet, and obedient. You could pet him without getting smashed in the nose, although he did lick a lot. He greeted you at the door with a smile and a wag of the tail, and he was a perfect leash walker, walking with an heir of dignity about him and showing off for the other dogs locked behind fences. And last but not least, he lived peacefully with our cat Gilligan.

Biscuit, well, she’s insane. Of course she’s two, which calculates to fourteen, a horrible year for hormones. I remember my fourteenth year, except I didn’t follow people around licking at their heels or stretching my tongue to eat meat off the counter, though I did bark at quite a few people.

But I digress…

A complete opposite of Clyde, Biscuit is tall and muscular. She goes nuts whenever you try to pet her. I’ve had many a sore chin and nose just for trying to show her some love. I’m greeted by 60 pounds of dog pushing me down when I walk in the door - and that’s just coming back from getting the mail. You can’t walk her on a leash without having to drag her or her dragging you. And I’ll certainly never be able to own another cat for fear she’ll eat them for breakfast.

We should have named her Marley...


(Yes, we’ve had to replace our bedding because of Biscuit.)

but I thought I was getting that sweet, cuddly dog from the vet’s office. Man, she pulled one over on me.

Pat likes to remind me that Clyde was mischievous when he was young, too. I guess I have selective memory. There was that one time he slid down the roof of our house from the second story and landed in the bushes. And it took him a few months to catch on to the leash and pooping outside. And he used to run around the living room in lightening-fast circles leaving cushions in the dust.

I try to remember that Biscuit is young. No, she’s not Clyde, but she’s a good dog, a sweet dog, and she deserves just as much love as Clyde.

I guess I just need to buy a hockey goalie’s mask to give it to her.