Love, Thy Name is Labrador

Of all of our pets, Scout is the best one. I don't know if it's just a first-child parental thing. I know you're supposed to love all your children the same way, but there's nothing like that first one, the one that changes your life forever. I don't have children, but I am a first child and first children always think that deep down, they are, if not the favorite child, the most memorable one. And the first child will be the only one who will remember their parents when they were a little more youthful.

I am the only child who can even fathom running through the sprinklers with my parents. The one who accompanied them on our first trip to Disney World. We were like three children and I still remember my mother squealing throughout the Dumbo ride.

I know that my birth transformed my mother from a non-cooking, cockroach-fearing, non-opinionated girl into the awe-inspiring magician of food, killer of insects, and the person who is not ever afraid of ever saying, "That outfit makes you look like a middle-aged woman."

I didn't have the heart to tell her that, at age 35, "I AM a middle-aged woman! Which makes YOU an ol'lady!"

Scout is the sweetest dog and it breaks my heart that she's getting older by the minute. I can already see that she's losing some of her muscle mass. Her ribs poke out of her sides more than they used to and she doesn't come as fast when you call her.

I used to be able to whip a bite up apple up in the air and it didn't matter how far I flung it, she would pounce and grab it out of the air. Nowadays, it might bounce off her nose...or worse yet, drop to the floor.

The way she interacts with the cat is so cute. When we first brought her home, Scout just looked at it and looked at us as if to say, "What have you guys done NOW (sigh). What IS that thing?" Gone was the abject terror of the day we brought home Rocky. On THAT day, she looked as if we were seconds away from throwing her out on the street and saying, "So long, girl. We've got a new dog now. We won't be needing your services any longer."

Scout and the cat will sleep near each other, on their own beds. In the mornings, the cat will rub up against Scout, although Scout is a little bit cautious, lest those sharp claws come out. Scout has weathered the storm of our four moves, countless road trips across the country, and bringing in newer members of the family. I don't think that anything we ever do will ever freak her out anymore. And for some reason, that makes me sad.

I think that she will be the dog we'll talk about forever, especially that night she pooped on the corner of our bedroom floor when she was only a few weeks old. She was a terrible puppy to toilet-train, which got her into a lot of trouble. That night, I woke up to the most horrendous smell in the world, a smell so foul it wasn't earthly. It smelled like a present from the land of Hades.

When I got up to go clean it up, I saw that Scout had placed two socks on top of the poop.

That's right. She made her poop, looked at it and thought, "Uhm. I better cover this up before they find out about this."

After she placed one of my socks on the poop, she stepped back and said to herself, "This won't do. I think I need to cover up THAT little bit right there." Then she went and got the other sock.

And you know what kills me about that incident? She used TWO DIFFERENT socks from TWO DIFFERENT pairs.