I’ve had a big raw-hide bone sitting around in my office for like, a year and a half.
ang nyang nyang
Originally, I brought it in for my boss’s dog, Remy. Remy started coming in to the office with my boss a few days a week because the other family dog (who had been Remy’s side-kick for his whole life), had recently passed away and Remy was having some separation anxiety issues. He was a big, goofy, friendly golden retriever (is there any other kind?), and he liked to rest his chin on my lap while I was typing. I’d have entire conversations with him (like I do with my own dog), complete with “Remy voice” answering my questions to him, etc.
As an aside, if my office-mates were at all iffy on my level of crazy before (which…doubtful), I’m sure that seeing the way I carried on when the dog was in the office PRETTY MUCH cemented it for them.
Anyway.
So, my one beef with Remy was his amazingly foul breath. He was an old dog and had some sketchy teeth. Plus dogs like to eat gross stuff and Remy was no exception. It was summer when he was visiting us so with the combination of his long flowing coat and our suck-ass air conditioning, it made for a lot of panting. Bad-teeth-scented, “I cleaned the catbox for mom and dad right before we came to work and I don’t have thumbs so I think you know what THAT means”-tinged, eye-water-inducing panting. With his chin in my lap. Often for upwards of 10-15 minutes at a time. Usually while looking up at me in that angelic way that made it impossible for me to tell him to go away because I am a SUCKER.
“Sure, I eat poop. You’re still going to pet me, though. Come on, pet me. DOOO ITTTTT.”
Brushing Remy’s teeth was kind of out, because I wanted to actually keep all my digits intact and also it wasn’t really my place to start doing hygiene maintenance on someone else’s dog (although knowing my boss, he probably would have been all for it and may have even offered me money to do it). The next best thing I could think of was a rawhide bone. I was hoping that if I brought one in for him, he’d gnaw on it a little and scrape a couple layers of olfactory horror off his chompers before coming to rest his chin in my lap for scritch-time. I talked to Boss to make sure it was ok, then I went out and procured a nice big golden retriever sized rawhide bone.
As I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, Remy gave nary a single winged fuck about that bone. He barely sniffed at it when I presented it to him. I left it on the floor by his snooze spot for a full week in the hopes he might get curious and give it a try.
Nope. Not one nibble. Not even another sniff.
Sighing and steeling myself for afternoons of smelling catshit-flavored death-breath from then on, I picked the bone up, set it on a shelf behind my desk and basically forgot about it unless someone came in and made a comment or joke about it.
Fast forward to today.
The guy that rents the office across the hall has a big, elderly black lab mix that he brings to work with him most days. He keeps the dog shut up in his office with him for the most part, but sometimes he doesn’t close the door tightly so the dog noses it open and goes on walk-about around the second floor. The guy is usually very quick to herd the dog back into his office but today I guess he was on the phone or something because Neighbor Dog was standing at the top of the stairs wagging his tail happily as I made the steep and arduous trek back up to my aerie (seriously, these stairs are fucking brutal. It’s like Frodo’s climb up Mt. Doom every morning when I get to work).
I stopped at the top and gave Neighbor Dog some well-deserved skritches, then continued on to my office, dog following closely behind. Guy Across The Hall popped his head into my office shortly there-after and apologized for the dog bothering us. We said no, of course it wasn’t a bother, we liked the company, etc. Then all of a sudden I remembered the rejected rawhide bone. I held it up (the dog had his back turned) and raised my eyebrows questioningly. Guy smiled and nodded, saying, “sure!”, so I stepped around the partition and presented the bone to Neighbor Dog.
Neighbor Dog sniffed it once and looked at me, slightly puzzled. I offered it again, saying “it’s ok, you can haz”.
He sniffed it again cautiously, then gave a big wag of tail, chomped onto the bone and bolted across the hall with it, much to my joy (and not a small amount of relief, honestly. I didn’t know if I could take another bone rejection).
So, moral of the story I guess, is to always keep a rawhide bone at your desk.
And that even if one shit-breath dog doesn’t want your bone, another one will eventually come along who does.
And most importantly, that dogs are awesome. Even the shit-breath ones.
Also, I ramble. But you know that by now.
How Bad Can It Go? 