We Still Have The Cilantro

The puppy wars have escalated, and Lily is a bad girl.  Now, before you get all sensitive and chastise me for negative speech that could affect my dog’s self-esteem, let me point out Lily already knows she is a bad girl.  Apparently, she doesn’t care, at least enough to not be a bad girl.

For those that don’t know, Lily and my wife have been at odds for awhile.  Body snatching, baited traps, strategic chewing, and toilet bowl drinking, it’s all well documented.  For the record, Lily drinks from the toilet and my wife baits the noise traps.  It would just be bizarre the other way around and have a much bigger impact on family dynamics.  Now the battle has moved to a new level, and location.

Lily knows when she does something wrong.  She pulls back her ears, ducks her head, and gets pitiful eyes.  She does this before I figure out what she’s done so she’s clearly a step ahead and unable to control her compulsions, which seem to center around driving her mother mad.  Oh, a trip to the kennel of shame lasts awhile, but then she’s back at it.  Just today, for instance, she chewed a straw and stuck her entire face into the grease trap of the new grill.  I’m sure it tasted great, but she didn’t have to plop her greasy face on her mom’s new bedspread, but well, she did it anyway.  Irritating?  Yes.  Predictable?  Well, yes.

Did I mention our new raised bed garden?  It’s not really ours so much as my wife’s.  She has worked hours on it – tomatoes, peppers, squash, zucchini, strawberries, and ten different herbs.  It’s like watching a train wreck, isn’t it?  You see it coming, but you can’t take your eyes away.  You know what happens next, but you are compelled to read on, much like Lily was compelled to dig up strawberries.  Except Lily is dedicated to her craft beyond the extent most dogs can muster.  Strawberries weren’t enough.  She dug tomatoes.  She dug peppers.  She dug squash and zucchini.  And then she dug up nine out of ten herbs.  True dedication.

            I told my wife to “look on the bright side.  We still have the cilantro.”

            She glared at me.  “I hate cilantro.  You are the only one who eats it.”

            I wonder if Lily knew that?  Surely not.