Elly & I

It’s happened. My prayers were answered. Either that or my parents are experiencing the early onset of dementia. Regardless, I have a Wire Haired Pointing Griffon puppy named Elly Mae Sesser. Well, she’s not just mine, it’s “the families” but let’s be real, I’m obviously the most fun person in the group and therefore her favorite. I’m honestly still in a state of shock that my parents decided to get another dog, Especially after they swore seven years ago when they got rid of the two dogs I had grown up with to never get another. Their names were Jasmine and Lady, and yes growing up I did name all of my animals after characters from whatever happened to be my current favorite movie…i.e. Lady and the Tramp, and Aladdin. I usually stuck with the Disney theme except for when I named my first goldfish Curly. You know, in reference to the main character from the Broadway Rogers and Hammerstein smash hit musical known as Oklahoma??? Yeah. I was a big fan at the age of seven. What can I say? I matured early in life. So seeing as this was going to be my Dad’s dog I figured I should let him name it, especially since my current favorite Disney movie is Tangled and I don’t know how I feel yelling out the name Rapunzel on a crowded street. My dad played around with the idea of naming her Francy for a while but on the drive back from her birthplace of Yelm, Washington, we both felt that Elly was a better fit.

I’ve always been a dog person for as long as I can remember. Cats just weren’t my thing. The first of two cats we had growing up was named Feliz and she was an absolute terror. That mean ol’ furball used to hide around corners just waiting for me to come walking by, minding my own damn business, before she would jump out and attack me without warning. This usually caused me to drop the raspberries I had spent all morning collecting which then sent me into a fit of tears and muffled sobs as a lay in the fetal position surrounded by a crimson pool of raspberry juice. I was a little dramatic in those days. Then there was Amy. Too be honest I did enjoy having her around. She loved to be petted and you always knew when you were scratching her favorite spots because she would start to salivate at an alarming rate. Things didn’t end too well with Amy because after she went missing for a week I happened to stumble across the remnants of a calico tail and two hind feet that in their mangled state look all too familiar. Damn possums. I’m still attending counseling sessions to help me get past this traumatic event. Thus you can see why I’ve stuck with dogs. Growing up in a small rural town, I was actively involved in the group known as 4-H and I decided to give the whole dog show thing a try. Not to toot my own horn or anything but I will say that Jasmine and I did pretty well back in the day. Yes, you may have read in the papers that we were the Grand Champions at the 1996 Walla Walla County Fair Dog Show. And yes, I was wearing an original fitted vest made by my mother that had fabric with puppies all over it that felt like it could have been used to reupholster a dining room chair. Fit like a freakin glove. The best part about dog shows was that sometimes the local television news stations would come by and take footage of Jasmine and I. Well mainly Jasmine. It usually resulted in full body shots of Jasmine while only my butt in my super tapered 90’s jeans was seen. Hey, like I’ve said before, I’ll take any sort of 15 minute of fame I can get.

Back to the present, life with Elly in the beginning was so easy. She was travel size. Easy to lift. Slept 23 hours out of the day. Enjoyed cuddling and waching Disney animated movies with me. She showed signs of understanding that we appreciated it when she peed and pooped in the grass OUTSIDE. Every single thing that she did was out of control cute. Even her little puppy farts made me giggle. Myyyyy oooh Myyyyyyy how quickly things change. These days I feel like a single mother raising a bipolar autistic child. SHE. IS. OUT. OF. CONTROL. She’s got what you might call an oral fixation in that she’s constantly trying to puncture skin. Be it me, mama, papa, grandma, small child on the playground with baby fingers that appeared to be appetizers. We seriously don’t even know what to do about it at this point. We shut her mouth and grab her loose neck skin, which is what her Vet instructed us to do. We pin her down. We yell NOOOOO! We give her a time out in the kennel. Er’thing. Doesn’t give a damn. I’m on the verge of having to buy a Costco size bottle of Neosporin to keep up with the lacerations my poor body has suffered from her constant biting. The night before Easter Sunday she decided it would be cute to slash my forehead with her razor sharp teeth thus leaving me with my already bruised and battered body looking like a victim of domestic abuse. Luckily mom let me borrow some of her foundation so unless you were really close during the meet and greet at the Easter Service I don’t think you could really tell. But still. Ever since the whole thing happened with Rihanna and Chris Brown, people talk.

Now it’s not like its been all bad. She does have her moments. It has been fun having a copilot who doesn’t complain about my latest pop music fixation. She also just discovered the awesomeness of sticking her head out the window as I drive down the road. Unfortunately she doesn’t realize that if she falls out the window I won’t be able to catch her and she will die. Therefore I keep a pretty tight hold on her collar. She definitely loves people, although she has strange ways of showing it, and she always comes running up to me to have her chubby belly rubbed whenever I come home from work. She’s totally infatuated by my morning ritual of making drip coffee and one of these days I need to give her a sip so she realizes she’s not missing out on anything. Lately she’s become incredibly good as schmoozing it up whenever she gets scolded for doing something wrong. She’ll always retreat to her bed and look at you from across the room with those sad puppy dog eyes that make her look like her heart will explode into a million pieces if you don’t forgive her. It’s just so hard to stay made at her for long. But these days the thing I enjoy the most about Elly is our Hulu.com date nights where she is content to just sit on my lap as we watch episodes of Modern Family till our abs hurt from laughing. We both agreed that Mitchell’s comedic timing in the Lady Gaga episode was 110% dead on. Our only complaint would be the limited commercial interruptions concerning kids with cancer. I mean really Hulu??? Is it too much to ask for 20 minutes of ignorant bliss from the cold cruel world we live in where kids lose legs from cancer and can no longer ride their bicycles??????