I used to think I wasn’t a dog person. I’ve since learned that I’m actually not a “your” dog person. Olive falls into the pitfalls of most dogs I don’t like, but she’s my dog – your dog probably sucks. Keep it far away from me. Of course, there have been some standouts: Evelyn Quail’s Goldendoodles (Simon and Sherman), Bryan Brady’s Cocker Spaniel (Toby), and who can forget Karen Schneider’s Dachshund (Schatzie). The common denominator between these dogs is that they are all well behaved, or, in Schatzie’s case, small and cute enough that I could overlook her behavior. I never had a dog. I spent eighteen years of my life free from fur-peppered clothes, the smell of dog and incessant barking.
The summer after my senior year of high school, though, things changed.
I received a text from my dad reading, “Say hello to your new puppy, Olive!” I replied, “your?” He said, “Yep. I’m picking her up tomorrow or Monday.”
I was now a dog owner – and not a happy one.
When Olive was a puppy, I didn’t like her. She had a ridiculous amount of energy all the time. She was always jumping around and trying to play tug-of-war. The nail in the coffin for me was when she’d grapple my arm into her mouth. I could feel all her teeth at once. Her incisors, canines, premolars and molars ran circles along my arm. Her saliva congealed and glued clumps of my hair together. My arm was covered in red marks, and sometimes she even broke skin, so I emerged battered and bleeding from her mouth. Dad thought this was funny. He’d say, “They say dog saliva is good for you. Helps your immune system.” Then he’d laugh, and, yeah, I’d laugh with him, but I never thought it was that funny.
My favorite detail of Olive’s early life is when she was expelled from doggy day care. Apparently, she was rowdy with the other dogs. Everyone was really surprised by this. I wasn’t. She didn’t listen to people, so why would she listen to other dogs? Keep in mind, she was expelled immediately after she graduated from obedience school (I would have held her back a few years, but that’s just me).
Recently, though, I’ve been bombarded with feelings of love for this dog. Sure, she still drools everywhere, and, yeah, she can’t figure out inside stairs – she uses outside stairs with no problem – but I love that dog. If you asked me a few months ago, I would’ve told you I got tricked into this. But, no, my heart truly opened to her, albeit slowly.
Last Christmas, Olive and my cousin’s dog, Andy, were playing. I was concerned, of course, because I can never tell when dogs are playing or when they’re “playing” (earnestly trying to hurt one another), and to me, Olive and Andy were absolutely “playing.” Despite my assertions though, nobody agreed with me, so the two terrorized the house and each other. Eventually it crossed the line and as everyone tried breaking up the two, I stood up from the couch, yelled “OLIVE,” and she gave up the fight and sat next to me. She heard me, she listened and she stopped. The dog who never listened to me finally did.
Another time, Evelyn told me to push Olive down whenever she jumped on me. Allegedly, this would make her stop. The next time I saw Olive, she jumped on me, so I pushed her to the ground a few times, yelled, “NO,” and she stopped. The girl is willing to listen, and this is what really made me love her. Olive is smart. She knows how to listen; she just doesn’t want to. But recently, I told her to “shake,” and her paw went up. There was no food in my hand; she just did it. It sounds simple, but shaking her paw with no strings attached felt like the culmination of our relationship. She was listening to me. She wanted to shake my hand – to make amends – and I wanted to shake hers.
Olive likes to play “chase.” She puts a toy in her mouth, and I chase her in circles around the backyard until she’s too tired to hold the toy and I’m too tired to run. We both come back inside panting and thirsty, we both drink water and we both take a minute to sit down.
A few days back, after Dad and I got dinner, we played “chase” with Olive. The sun was on its way down, and the evening chill was setting in. It smelled like evening: the cold intermingled with the trees and the grass, and the air I inhaled was so cold it hurt my nose and lungs, yet I breathed better than I ever had. The sky’s brilliant blues, reds, oranges and yellows danced with one another in long streaks in the sky and colored everything on the ground in the same vibrant hues. Dad and I ran around, shirts unbuttoned and belts loose, and Olive ran circles around us. Our full-stomached footsteps along the stone ran parallel to the pitter-pattered scratching of her paws and the cars speeding by on the road. We didn’t catch Olive; we didn’t need to. She dropped the toy from her mouth, and we went inside. Dad and I gave her a snack, Dad and I refilled her water and Dad and I laughed when she spilled it everywhere, and I think, if she could’ve, Olive would’ve laughed with us.