My Dog Has A.D.D.

A chronicle of my morning with Hermione thus far:

She woke me up at about 5:30 with the stretch/bed creep that is her patented move. It begins as a stretch (and Hermione, because of her reputed Italian Greyhound blood, has a very long body, so long it has given rise to the nickname "Neville Longbody"), but a stretch cleverly directed towards the top of the bed, leaving her, post-stretch, closer to the always-enticing pillows. Today, however, Mission Stretch/Creep was regularly interrupted by scratching. Now, at the time I read this scratching as the last vestige of mange, a reading I have since reconsidered based on later information. Read on.

After Hermione jumped out of bed, her sign that she is ready to greet the world (or at least has desperately to pee), we headed downstairs, where she began her day as she almost always does: by finding her favorite toy (a leopard print fabric bone, with a sqeaker inside). She squeaks on the toy, looks at me expectantly, and I rebuff the request for play by reminding her (by picking up her food bowl) that it's breakfast time, and that she loves food more than play (most of the time). So this morning went like other mornings--until, that is, I gave her her food.

Now, as you might have guessed, I'm a rather indulgent dog mommy. Not in terms of discipline--Hermione is a well-behaved pup--but in terms of the luxuries of doggie life. Exhibit A: Hermione's breakfast always includes something freshly cooked, cut up and mixed in with her kibble. Normally this is a fried egg, but since we are out of fried eggs, and I'm too behind on my work to drive to the grocery store, today it was a piece of bacon (since I had to buy bacon for a recipe I made for a dinner party and am trying to burn it off to prevent my own indulgence in the taste sensation that is pork, salt, and fat). So I fried a piece of bacon, cut it up, and mixed it in with her kibble, fending off a leaping puppy the entire time, enticed as she was by the smell. You would think, then, that when I deposited her food bowl in its normal place, and instructed her to eat with the clearly uttered command "Food," she would throw herself into this process with abandon, becoming oblivious to all that surrounds her as she indulges in the smokey taste of a bacon-kibble casserole. You would be wrong.

Instead, her breakfast tiime went something like this:

Eat delicious bacony kibble

Get Leopard Bone from dining room rug and depart

Return to dining room rug with Isaac Mizrahi Plastic Toy Rain Boot

Eat delicious bacony kibble

Get Isaac Mizrahi Plastic Toy Rain Boot and depart

Return to dining room rug with Pink Flamingo

Eat delicious bacony kibble

Get Pink Flamingo and depart

Smell delicious bacony kibble (on command from mommy to "Food") and scorn it.

Force, through such strange behavior, mommy to get out of her chair (and leave her precious coffee) and follow me, having convinced mommy that I am shitting somewhere in the living room (ugh)

Happily surpirse mommy with lack of poop, but then wig her out when she discovers a very neat pile composed of the Leopard Bone, Isaac Mizrahi Plastic Toy Rain Boot, and Pink Flamingo right in the center of the TV room (see photo).


I have absolutely no idea what such behavior means, but have dealt with my initial wiggins by refusing the horror-movie ideology whereby the strange stacking of objects is a sign either that one is a ghost or that one is insane. There is no reason why good organization should take such a bad rap, and so I've decided instead to see this in a positive light (as is, as I've said before, my wont as a doggie mommy). Perhaps Hermione is just taking inventory, or engaged in a bit of spring cleaning. Or perhaps this is the dog version of the Freudian fort-da, and she is thus learning to manage the trauma of my departures. Or perhaps, as my title suggests, she just has A.D.D., and so can't keep focused on any one thing at any one time. Since I have A.D.D. (just recently diagnosed, in fact), but have managed to soldier on and get a Ph.D. and become a professor, I think this bodes only well for my mangy pup. In the meantime, I will simply appreciate the good sense of my dog, who has managed to do my chore of organizing her toys for me. It just remains for me to go pick up the pair of my nylons she discovered while I was composing this post, and which she has since deposited on the dining room rug, after, that is, tearing through the house (and through them) with them in her mouth.