I bet she'll taste great with some A-1 steak sauce!

I love my dog. Now please go back and re-read that last sentence one more time. Do you understand? Okay good. BECAUSE I AM GOING TO BARBEQUE HER!

For example, I was watching a show last night on A&E about people who O.C.D. (obsessive compulsive disorder) and there was this woman who obsesses over dogs being tortured and killed. Well they took this woman to a local pound and America got to watch her have an emotional melt down over all the fuzzy faces in cages. I am the kind of woman who cries at the IAMS dog food commercial so being pregnant and seeing this, I started to weep and proceeded to hug my dog until she couldn’t take it anymore due to lack of oxygen. Do you really understand how much I love my dog? I hope so…because taking away all her squeaky toys and leaving her with nothing to play with really going to breaks my heart.

Every morning my dog and I have a routine. I get up, shower, go downstairs, put her on her leash, let her out my front door so she can “relieve herself” on my lawn, go inside, feed her, feed myself, go back upstairs, and get ready for work. This pattern was interrupted when Sera came to town. She wanted to walk Freya across the road every morning and let her use the bathroom on the big lawn. I agreed because it was Sera and it wasn’t a big deal. But 2 weeks of walking across the road to let Freya urinate on the large patch of grass spoiled my dog. And now that Sera has gone, Freya can’t get back into our normal routine.

I let her out the front door and she just sits there…staring at me. It has become a battle of wills which I lose because I don’t want to bring her back in and have her pee on my floor. I have ended up caving in and walking her across the road to let her go to the bathroom. But not today! I wasn’t going to let that happen today. Nope, this morning she was going to pee in my front lawn no matter what.

So after my shower I go to get dressed and realized all my clothes are downstairs on the dryer. But that is okay because I am not walking outside today. My dog is going to pee on my lawn and I was only going to have to stand at my front door. So I wrapped a towel around me, threw my robe over that for a little extra modesty, and headed down stairs.

I got to my front door and clipped on Freya’s leash and let her out. Sure enough, she sat on the front step and waited. But I wasn’t going to give in. I closed my screen door and attached her leash handle to the knob so she couldn’t get away. She was going to sit out there and do her business. So I walked into my kitchen and got her breakfast ready. I peeked at the front door and could tell she was still sitting there so I went on my way. I got myself a bowl of cereal and some juice and headed to the table. …that’s when I heard it.

SCREECH…SCRAPE…CLUNK…

I whip around to see Freya’s leash handle lying on the floor. I run to the front door and look out my screen. She is across the road peeing on the lawn. Her leash is older and it broke months ago so Ryan tied a big knot in it to hold it together. Apparently this did not go unnoticed by my dog. And from the looks of it, she chewed the knot lose and ran free across the road.

Now I panic. My dog is a runner and if she gets lose, she takes off. So without thinking I dart out the front door after her. She sees me coming and knows she is in trouble. So mid-pee she starts running. I catch up to her only to get dog pee on my foot. Gross! I grab the little bit of leash still attached to her collar and began to drag her back to my front door when I feel something…slipping.

Then it hits me, I am still in my bathrobe with a towel wrapped around me. And that slipping, well that’s the towel. So now I am hunched over hanging onto my dog with one hand and trying to keep my robe closed tight with my other and trying not to let me towel fall completely off. I get back across the road and to my front door, but right as I am about to enter, the towel slips to the ground.

I shove my dog inside and try to close the screen door but it’s still open a crack. I bend down to pick up my towel while checking to see if any of my neighbors are dying from laughter in their front room windows, when through the crack in the door my dog licks my face. I glare at her and she cocks her head to one side and wags her tail as if to say, “I win. Let’s play again.” Tomorrow we will play by her rules.