The Perfect Dog

Oh, friends, I am driving myself crazy. And everyone else around me too. All because of a dog.

For Christmas, we told our kids we were getting a puppy. I have been in touch with a wonderful breeder of mini goldendoodles, and over the course of the fall, sent him a deposit for a pup who will be born any day now. Said pup is what’s known as an F1 mini doodle, meaning its mama is a golden retriever and its daddy a poodle. But the whole reason we got interested in the first place was because we’d puppy-sat our friends’ adorable mini goldendoodle, whom I will call Perfect, and we’d fallen in love with her last September. Even Tom said, “Yes, let’s get a dog like Perfect. It’s time. We’ll keep it a secret and surprise the kids at Christmas.” (As readers of this blog know, we once had a dog named George Harrison, a personality-impaired chocolate lab who ate everything including our bananas and his own poop. Then we had Stella, who was fantastic in every way except for biting kids on their eyeballs. Both dogs left us for much better forever homes. Two strikes, right? But one day, we promised the kids, we’ll try again. Three’s the charm, after all. And everyone knows that you should get a puppy if you want to make sure to have an untraumatized dog. Assuming, that is, that our household will be free from trauma, which is a big assumption.)

So I acted on my best counsel, (my own) and proceeded, without completely researching every aspect of this project. To wit: I asked my friend T where she got her goldendoodle, whom I had met once as a puppy. She told me, and I went with that breeder, INSTEAD of going with the breeder of Perfect.  But now, by pure coincidence, Perfect has come to stay with us for a week, between Dec. 23 and 30 while her humans are on vacation. I have been snuggling this sweet puppy, running my fingers through her curls, washing her in the sink, carrying her around the house, going for runs with her, even sleeping with her at night. I am smitten. We all are.

I saw T right before Christmas and casually asked how much her dog weighed, as I haven’t seen her since she was a tiny pup. “30 lbs,” she said. Thirty pounds? Even Stella was 20, and she wasn’t exactly a lap dog. I came home and got on the scale, then picked up Perfect and got back on. My weight with Perfect, minus my weight was…13 lbs. I couldn’t believe it. I was getting a dog twice as big as Perfect. Not perfect!

We surprised our kids with a letter from Santa, cut in two so they had to hold the two sides together to read it. They were out of their minds with joy. But instead of just letting us all have our joy at the dog we would get in the future, as well as the joy of the present moment (Perfect now), I immediately went into full-blown compulsive mode and commenced to ransack the internet with every key word I could think of for “13 lb golden doodle.” (Micro goldendoodle. Teddy bear goldendoodle. Petite goldendoodle. Size of a breadbox goldendoodle.)  I composed a pitch (why we are the perfect family, etc.) and lobbied my husband to agree to flying to AZ if necessary. (He said no. For the price they are charging for this kind of dog, he said, they should fly it to us, AND take us out for steak and champagne.) (NOTE: Please do not leave me comments about how we should rescue a dog, or how elitist we are to be buying a microbrewed puppy, or designer dog. I am about to turn 50. My beloved candidate–who people also criticized me for supporting– just lost the election, and perhaps our nation has lost its democracy. I know what I want: a curly-haired dog who will sit on my lap for hours. I am too old to pretend to do something my heart isn’t in, and it’s no longer in me to rescue a dog from the pound. I have done that four times, plus adopted a retired therapy dog who was labotomized. I am getting the dog I have always wanted. Please leave your opinions at the door.)

But then I discovered that I could not live with myself. I am a bad neighborhood, right now, snapping at the kids who are somehow not eternally grateful for their gifts, furious at the fallen pine leaves from the dying Christmas tree that are littering my carpet, yearning to play music but perversely unwilling to step over to the piano or pick up the guitar. I have internet-itis. Everyone is misbehaving. I keep bursting into tears. Most of it is because of the election, and the news, etc. but somehow it’s all pilling onto the frustration with myself that I didn’t put a deposit down on the right sized dog last September.

I dreamed last night that I met with our new president-elect. To my surprise, he was quite different in person. In fact, he was a teen-aged girl, who spoke like a teenaged girl, specifically Hailey on Modern Family. I began speaking to the president-elect as I would to a girl 35 years younger than me but also to the office to which she’d been elected, which is to say carefully and slowly and with respect but not endorsement. “I have some concerns about how you will handle the economy,” I started, thinking that was more neutral than going straight to the Muslim registry. “It seems that you have some goals that are at odds with each other. Like hiring a budget director who wants big spending cuts while you are advocating a huge jobs bill.”

“Yeah,” said our president-elect. “That is a bit weird.” She pulled her wad of gum out of her mouth and examined it.

“Also,” I continued, emboldened by her reasonableness. “We’re all a little afraid of tyranny.”

“No need,” she assured me. And somehow, I believed her and woke up feeling a little better.

Anyway, as the day was unusually warm,  I went for a second walk in the dog park with my beloved Perfect. And while I was there, I saw the most amazing thing: a motley grayish standard poodle, and for the first time, I took in the beauty and grace that breed possesses. His owners let him off the leash, and he ran like a deer. I exhaled. There is beauty indeed in large dogs. What do I know? I am capable of loving anything.

It will be ok. The 30 lb dog will be fine. I have fallen in love with Perfect, the way you fall in love with a person, or a city, or a career, or a wedding ring. What seemed slightly strange and off initially becomes the beloved after one has spent time, real time, with her. I can’t imagine loving another dog now that I have fallen for Perfect, but the truth is I will love my puppy, no matter how big s/he gets. And do you know what? Perfect was sitting next to me the whole time I was writing this. Now I am going to post it and put away my computer and just hold her for a few minutes. For right now, I have the perfect dog. Maybe I can trust that will always be true.