Explanations

Only five posts into this version of the website and already I’m asking myself, I’m asking, hey, Heather, you know, will you write about anything other than your damn dog ever again?

Because I know that at some point, perhaps a point already past, people are going to start saying, hey, Heather, you know, they’ll say, I really don’t need to read another word about your damn dog.

But the thing is, you see, the thing is, I just now taught him how to shake hands like, he will now lift his paw and shake your hand. Seriously. It’s like magic or something.

And for a while, for like three days, I was thinking, my dog’s not ever going to learn how to shake hands. He’s looking at me like, “You want me to do what?” and his big brown eyes are all, “You’ve never made me work for a treat before, dude. Why are you doing this to me?”

And for three days it was the hardest thing I ever did, making him work for a treat, because seriously, he is like the most precious creature on the planet, and I’d like to see you try to refuse him anything.

So for three days I was torn between giving in and just handing him the damn treat and wondering, dude, is my dog stupid? Does my dog ride the short bus? What dumb dog doesn’t know how to shake?

I mean, just shake my hand and you get the treat, you know? How easy is that? Like this. See how easy that was? Shake. Just, you know, shake. My three-yr-old niece knows how to shake, for crying out loud, and she’s not even potty trained.

And just now, just now, three days after torturing myself and my dog, he like, looked at me then looked down at his paw then looked back up at me, raised his paw and I swear to God he said, “I’m only doing this because you’re being really pathetic, and I’m embarrassed for you.”

But, dude, he shook!