Fargo (Fargo is our puppy, we will show you pictures of her at the end) loves lunch. She goes apeshit over it. She pinballs around the hallway. She runs things over on her way to her crate, where we put the food. She tries to headbutt the bowl out of our hands as we set it down. Her tail wags so hard her whole body spins around. It’s a sight.
But she does not like it when other people eat lunch.
This isn’t just limited to her roommates, like me. No, she doesn’t like it when I eat lunch, and she expresses that by trying to steal said lunch (front paws on the table, tongue stretching and flashing around like Jackson Pollock’s paintbrush), protesting said lunch (biting my legs while I eat), threatening to use said lunch as cover to commit crimes (running towards the mat she likes to pee on when she’s wound up)…the normal puppy stuff. If it was just me she was inhibiting, it would be fine. We’d get through it. But it’s not just me.
It’s the neighbors too.
We live in a duplex, and our neighbors—who are very kind—have two nice seating areas for themselves, one in the front, one in the back. The other day, I got the mail, and since Fargo likes to look outside I left the front door open, with just the screen door blocking the street. I was bopping around, getting other things done, keeping an eye on her from afar when, boom: The tail started to wag.
Initially, I thought it was maybe an Amazon delivery person (we ordered a few gallons of vinegar to solve the Fargo v. Mushroom problem in the backyard, since we’ve been told dogs don’t like vinegar and vinegar kills mushrooms). But no one was coming to the door. So I peered around the corner, and there was the neighbor, trying to eat his lunch while Fargo, sitting at a latchless screen door, whined and pawed and made similar attempts to get the powers that be (me and the neighbor) to let her go jump all over her friend. I didn’t think much of it, but the neighbor noticed and went inside. Fargo’s tail stopped wagging. All was calm.
Or so I thought.
Half a minute later, Fargo was at my side, barking incessantly. She’s a puppy, but she’s also pushing 25 pounds already, so she’s got a big woof. And she was using it. Not knowing what she wanted but knowing she hadn’t taken a dump for about four hours, I hurried through my sandwich (while she made intermittent attempts to stop me) and got up to head back out, thinking I’d eat my applesauce while she zoomed and potentially fertilized the lawn.
When we got outside, though, Fargo did not zoom to the poop sector of the yard. And she did not zoom to the mushrooms. And she did not trot over to the little place behind the bench where she likes to take a leak now and then. She beelined for the seating area. Because there was the neighbor, having already had his lunch moved by Fargo, making a second attempt to enjoy the spring air.
There was jumping.
There was rolling.
There were belly rubs.
The wagging tail threatened the structural integrity of multiple pieces of lawn furniture.
For some context, Fargo’s been refusing to relieve herself in front of the neighbors recently (not shy—just too busy playing), and the neighbors have picked up on this and generously gone inside a few times to remove the attraction that prohibits her from emptying her bladder. The neighbor again offered to do this.
Thankfully, Fargo had peed right before her lunch, so another relocation wasn’t necessary (I expended a lot of treats prying her away from her pal, and we then went on a walk in the sun in an attempt to tire her out/heat her up enough that she’d lay on the cool tile in the kitchen the rest of the day), but we were very close to Fargo forcing our neighbor to eat his lunch in three separate places, all on his own rented property.
Which I tell you only for this reason:
If Fargo ever runs for pawfice, she’ll have to answer for her inconsistency.
