We trained the dog so that when he wants out, he goes to the front door and waits.
Somehow in his little golden retriever brain, he interpreted this to mean “go to the front door, and lick it.”
If he’s at the door, but isn’t licking it, he doesn’t need out, he’s just chilling.
So, this was our routine – when he wants out, he goes to the front door, and licks it. And then we moved house, and he got very, very confused.
He knew he had to go to the front door when he wants out, but this was a new house with obviously a door that was completely new to him.
Despite our condo having only one door that leads outside, and him going out this very same door literally at least five times a day, every day, for about a year…he still has no idea where the front door is in this house. Absolutely no idea at all.
Now whenever he needs out, he will go to any random door and start licking it. And I mean any door – the bathroom door, my bedroom door, my closet, the goddamn door of a kitchen cabinet, even.
I don’t know if he’s really smart or really dumb. Because clearly, he understands conceptually what a door is. I don’t know if he thinks my closet or the kitchen cabinets lead to outside, or if he’s just hoping to find doggy Narnia, or if he’s just hopelessly given up on ever being able to find the door by himself and is just doing the best he can, but every goddamn time he wants out, he’s right there licking the glass door to the shower or something.
He doesn’t alert us he needs out any other way. So if you haven’t seen him in a while, you have to search room by room until you find him with his tongue pressed up against the linen closet because he thinks outside might be that way.
He’s the biggest, dumbest dog I have ever met in my life and I could not love him any more. He’s perfect.
Here he is, patiently licking the door of my wardrobe.
Wingardium Leviosa Potter, you were named so that every time a teacher yells at you they’re going to make stuff fly around the room. Your mother wanted to call you Fred, but I thought this would be more true to his memory.
Imagine going to a party and the white suburban stay at home mom with two overachiever kids and white dad who barbeques but doesn’t know how to barbeque and yet is always surrounded by other white Dads who compliment his barbqeuing even though they’re just store bought preshaped frozen patties from Ralph’s or Food 4 Less and while he’s cooking those the white mom comes out and says “okay kids, here’s some pizza!” And she pulls this out and starts telling the kids why its a “fun pizza” and then cries in her master bedroom when no one likes it or finishes it and the white dad is then consoling her why she sobs that she’s a terrible mother and ruined her fourth grade straight B+ sons birthday and thinks her kids hate her but they don’t care but she continues crying softly into her pillow while the children eat poorly cooked burgers with unmelted kraft singles and too much mayonnaise and the only other condiments are two pickles and pepper because the dad calls it his special burger with a secret spice but the spice was just pepper and the kids just keep playing E rated games on their Nintendo Wii while the 17 year old older sister starts cleaning the tragedy up and throwing away uneaten “fun pizza” and whole burgers dejected from the start while she dials Pizza Hut to get these kids an actual birthday lunch and the mother then throws a fit because the daughter did something the kids liked and she didn’t and was the only one making a huge deal out of it and the daughter was then grounded from her TV in her room for only two days and the son went to blow out the candles in his standard birthday cake from food 4 less the mom added strawberries to so she could feel she did something but was still slightly teary and sad because her day was ruined by no one wanting to eat her “fun pizza”
Waiting for Winter 