Walking the Dog

My quest to combat diabetes has resulted in several big changes in my life, most of which surround the areas of diet and exercise. The food part has been pretty easy, but exercise isn’t my favorite thing to do.

At all.

Which is why diabetes took it upon itself to make my life miserable. It’s in my genes, therefore I made it easy to settle in and change everything.

So we got a dog.

Ok, we didn’t get the dog because of my diabetes, we actually got the dog because my dad loves dogs and I thought it would be a good idea to have a critter that would keep him company those few hours he had to hang out by himself on weekends, and to sleep with him at night.

That didn’t last long.

“He snores,” Ye Olde Fartte said the morning after he spent his first night with the dog. “He doesn’t just snore, but he also grunts, twitches, and hogs the bed.”

“Hmm, sounds like someone else I know,” I said, risking a glance at Tammie.

“Yeah, well I don’t want him sleeping with me any more.”

I worried that the dog would get into the cat food, or worse, the cat boxes if he was left to himself at night. But I needn’t have worried. He’s actually quite the little gentleman.

Except when he’s on a leash. The minute a lead is clipped to his halter, he turns into the Tasmanian devil from the Bugs Bunny cartoons. He chases things and feels compelled to RUN from one P-mail spot to the next. This crazy dog even wanders while he’s leaving emojies. That’s fun to pick up. I feel like a demented reenactment of Hansel and Gretel, only instead of stones or breadcrumbs, I’m following dog turds.

It took a couple weeks, and a new halter, but now he’s doing a bit better, not pulling quite so hard on the lead, unless all this exercise has just made me faster and better able to keep up with him. This is all fine and good until he sees another dog, then my little sweet doggie goes from ridiculous Tasmanian Devil, to a hell hound, all bark, snark, and teeth.

“I’mma gonna kill ‘im. I’mma gonna kill ‘im and eat ‘im! I’mma gonna do it NOW! NOW! NOW!”

“You may NOT eat that dog.” I find myself repeating that several times on our walks. The owners of the other dogs think I’m being funny, but I’m totally serious. He WILL eat their dog!

And then there’s “THE Dog!”

It goes around town, pulling a wagon filled with tourists. It clip-clops down the street several times a day, and sometimes when we’re out on our walk, we see it. We see it and we want it. We want it because we want to EAT IT!!!  Because we haven’t figured out it ISN’T a dog. A funny smelling, giant-assed monster of a dog. But we don’t care, WE WILL EAT IT!!

And another wrassling match ensues, with me insisting he cannot eat the horse, and people think I’m being funny. They laugh as I hoist the little beast into my arms, doing my best to keep my face away from all those damn teeth and flailing paws bedecked with sharp claws.

“DOG! MUST EAT GIANT DOG! IT IS MY PURPOSE IN LIFE! PUT ME DOWN SO I MAY DINE ON HIS FLESH!”

“No. You have to check your P-mail and I’m pretty sure I smell an emoji or two lurking about in your gut.”

“DIE! DIE! DIE! HATEFUL BEAST! I SHALL DESTROY—” I turned away so he couldn’t see the horse any more and the threats ceased.

“You were saying?” I asked.

“Do you smell that?”

“Can you be more specific?”

“I think Angel from the book store left me a message over by the hotel parking lot. Let’s go!!!” And off we go, the horse completely forgotten as we resume our trek to find the holy grail of pee spots and offload a few emojies. Thankfully, I am equipped with emoji traps, which I employ, then hang on the handy-dandy clip attached to the dispenser. We finish our trek with me sporting a bracelet of dangling poop sacks.

I’m not sure how this is going to help me combat diabetes, but it certainly is keeping my ego in check.