Sunday Newscape Magazine

It's fitting that the dog is man's best friend. After all, men and dogs are remarkably similar creatures, each given to sleeping after eating, scratching and passing gas shamelessly, and each exhibiting a strong aversion to vacuum cleaners. But the canine bond with woman (at least when that woman is me) is a bit more complicated. I have a love-hate relationship with our dog: she loves me, and I hate her. Most of the time, anyway.

At some point, almost all parents are asked by their offspring to enhance the childhood experience with a pet. That’s what happened in our family. It began with a tot’s tiny plea, which built over time into a full-blown nag, which eventually swelled into a swirling, tear-fueled Category 5 caterwaul. We tried to resist, but somehow we found ourselves one day at a shelter – an animal shelter that is. My life hasn’t been the same since then.

We picked out an abandoned Labrador mix boringly named Blackie and upgraded her to the more elegant Ebony. Unfortunately, her behavior didn’t follow suit. If you remember your Greek mythology (and who among us doesn’t), you’ll recall that the underworld was said to be guarded by a dog with many heads. I am convinced that this Hound from Hades has now relocated to my house.

Whenever my back is turned, she uses all those heads to simultaneously chew my furniture, raid the trash cans, steal food right off people’s plates and maintain an ever-vigilant patrol near the front windows in case another dog -- or on really good days, a cat -- should pass by and require an ear-splitting round of barking. Then, when I yell at her, she ducks under the dining room table and manages to look both guilty and absolutely unrepentant at the same time.

I am beginning to think that in addition to multiple mouths, the mutt has a high number of heinies. No single derriere could possibly produce the copious amounts of doggie doo that have littered my lawn since Ebony’s arrival. My children, who swore up and down they would clean up every bit of it, have developed a variety of excuses for avoiding the job. There should be a congressional investigation into the millions of phony poo-pickup promises made by generations of dog-desperate kids. It’s a national scandal.

Naturally, the task of bathing the furry flea bag has also fallen to me. The first time I gave her a bath, Ebony bolted away from me and raced around the yard, frantically rolling her freshly cleaned body in every bit of dirt she could find. Then she made a beeline for the house, shot through the open back door and began to run circles in my living room, gleefully grinding her newly acquired grime into my pink (PINK!) carpet.

After that, our bathing battles entered a passive-aggressive phase. It’s always the same routine: I restrain her until she’s dry, and she then releases smelly secretions all over her skin so that within two hours, her malodorous mongrel scent is restored. A few days later, when I can no longer stand the stench, we do it all over again.

The very worst thing about this animal is that she utterly adores me. She is nauseatingly needy, following me from room to room. When I put her outside, rather than engaging in normal dog activities, she presses her pathetic face against the door and whines until I let her in. When I sit down, she places her body against my leg, content just to be near me. When I pet her in a moment of weakness, she shudders with delight.

And when I am feeling depressed or anxious, she seems to know it. She’ll place one paw on my knee or on my arm and gaze at me with unconditional, almost unfathomable, love.

Once, on a particularly tense and frantic day, when I’d tried to shave my legs too fast and managed to cut myself in several places, she instantly appeared and proceeded to carefully lick my wounds, both literally and figuratively.

At times like that, she may actually be my best friend. And that’s what keeps me from killing her.