In for a penny, out from the pound

My wife hates dogs.

I hate cats.

So we had hamsters for many years.

Actually I had hamsters even before I met my wife. (It’s OK, it’s not at all like having crabs.) I liked the idea of caring for some living thing as a recent ex-student. A bit like a dry run for parenthood. But cheaper. I used to feed my first hamster (nominally vegetarian, naturally seed-eating, you understand) on salami. It had a lovely shiny coat. Against my fervent protestations, a friend once tried to stroke it through the bars of the cage. He was fine after the stitches healed. Some people just don’t listen. I think that one was called Smudge. “Fang” was just a pet name, really.

Anyway, content that (teenagers aside), the house would never have anything furry in it larger than the aforementioned hamsters, I was a little perturbed when my wife suddenly declared we now owned a dog. Turns out she’d been swayed from her anti-canine position by the “ahhh” factor of miniature dachshunds (which, incidentally are statistically the most aggressive dog there is… even worse than rottweilers!), examples of which she’d seen when collecting the offspring from school.

Wikipedia: Regular & Miniature Dachshund

Having seen that the West Vancouver SPCA had dachshunds in need of adoption, she’d gone there to offer succour. Naturally, by the time the advert had hit the Internet, the dogs were long gone, but this fluff-ball was still in need of a loving home:

Spike

Sadly she ended up with us instead, but a couple of years on she seems happy enough. She’s half terrier (hunter – ear down) and half corgi (herder – ear up), so she’s as psychotic as the rest of the family, and fits pretty well. They say dogs look like their owners, but it’s been a long time since I had that much hair. The eyebrows though… maybe (though I can’t yet comb mine back over my ears!)

She’s very cock-sure of herself, likes you to know who’s boss and claims her eyes are green, but if you tickle her under the chin, she rolls over like a woman of negotiable affection (to quote Terry Pratchett) and delights in exposing her belly to be rubbed. Wouldn’t we all…?