ACCOUNTANT BY DAY

In case I haven’t explained before, my dog is what people used to call a dumb animal. Only, when people said it they meant dumb in the sense of “not able to talk”, and when I say it I mean dumb in the sense of “an idiot who is not smart”. One of the funnest things about dumb animals, and this time when I say it I mean “an idiot who can not talk”, is the fact that we can say anything we please about, to, or for them and they don’t know any better than to look at us with their stupid, uncomprehending faces and hope that treats might ensue.

Related to this, my boyfriend and I have this sort of game that we play with the dog that I think of as the dog monologue. It more or less entails us having a conversation with the dog, where we fill in her half of the conversation, or simply attribute attitudes and reactions to her. She is just smart enough to figure out that these things have something to do with her, but not smart enough to even remotely guess at what. So usually she responds by cycling through random learned acts she has picked up over time, such as assuming the begging position. I find this totally hilarious for some reason.

We also use the dog as a third party arbiter to our arguments, one of us supplying her with credentials and the other bitterly disputing them.

Me: Well, the dog says I’m right. She went to a 2 year community college so she knows.
My boyfriend: She flunked every class except Meat Snacks. So she doesn’t know.
Me: Dog knows a lot about living, okay?
My boyfriend:  Dog, wag your tail if you agree with me.
Dog: [extremely alert after picking out the words "dog" and "meat]

Sometimes we let her make wagers or we make her offers to see what she will do. My boyfriend will do something like offer her “200 beeves” of her own if she will go outside to poop in the driving rain. When she remains immobile on the couch, trying hard to show how much she does not want to go outside, he expounds at length on what an opportunity she has passed up.

“She says you don’t have the beeves,” I supply, after interpreting her confused but cautiously interested expression. “You were going to welsh on the deal, she says. I kind of agree with her.”

“Of course I don’t have them now,” he complains. “I was going to buy them. One time deal. This one’s not coming back on the table.”

I love animals. They are hilarious because they don’t understand our verbal abuse.