Doris and I play a game prior to nap and bedtime. Before slipping under the covers, I stand at the mattress' side and stare at the empty pillows. My rescue pet usually sleeps atop two.
I am in dramatic mode, acting as if a loved one has disappeared. "Where is Doris?" I shriek.
"Has anyone seen my baby?" comes the second line of dialog.
And finally, with sobs, "I can't sleep without my dog!"
With that cue, my 30-pound Terrier/Jack Russell mix leaps from her mark on the couch, races into the bedroom, vaults atop, settles on her pillows, and waits for my line.
"There's my Doris!" I say. I am a mom reunited with a kidnapped child.
Once the scene has been played out, I get into my place, turn out the light, pull up the covers, and we are asleep.
You may be the sort untouched by our production. Perhaps you have a dog, but have not allowed them to join you in slumber. You may blame the size of your mattress for banning the extra body.
Possibly you have allergies that flare up when you are skin to fur with your pet?
Or maybe you're the sort who thrashes in their sleep and worry you may accidently bang your baby?
To all of these explanations, I say, balderdash!
I don't think I'm a special case; someone inordinately tied to their pet and uses them as a stand-in for grown children who have moved away and phone when they're in the car.
Perhaps Doris is singular because when adopted, she was already 1-1/2 years old. The binder pulled from the facility's file cabinet rang alarm bells, tolling: very frightened, must be in a home without children, adopter must have had previous dogs, and other hints that would have dissuaded a brighter bulb than I.
Certainly someone my age -- 81 at the time -- might have had second thoughts and continued her search among the puppies and well adjusted. Alas, those red flags in her file merely seemed as rainbows, waiting for the two of us to live as one.
I did fulfill the requirement to be a previous dog owner. My first was Sasha, a Golden Retriever puppy I ordered at a canine show. The impetus was a divorce from a spouse who never favored animals in the house. When mate made for the door, Sasha padded in.
Six years later, my somewhat erratic pure bred introduced me to my second husband, an animal lover who had lived with a dog and cat. Both died before our "on the street where we lived" fairy-tale meeting.
When Sasha died of throat cancer at 12, we waited a bit, then adopted a 1-1/2-year old from a Golden Retriever rescue center. We named him Buddy and lived with this happy-go-lucky dog until his death at 14.
We cajoled, but neither Sasha nor Buddy opted to hop on our queen-sized. The carpeted floor, under foot, was their favored spot of repose.
Doris entered my life and bed seven years after Tommy and Buddy died. I'm not sure why I waited so long. Perhaps I thought, at my age, I couldn't handle a dog? Maybe it was the expenses that came with? Chicago's winters, could this elderly woman chance a slip on the ice on a dog's bathroom break?
I am a glass is full kind of gal. I dumped those queries in the trashcan where barriers to my schemes pile up.
My adult children have also rescued pups that sleep at their ears. This brings me happiness, as if these siblings had awarded me a Mother Knows Best plaque.
The kids are smarter then me because they adopted dogs that fit under the seat of an airplane. Doris is too large to meet air flight standards. And even if she could, her built-in neuroses would extract any delight from my trip or fellow passengers.
This size-of-animal-error has made travel exasperating for my hosts and agonizing for me. Three-day trips to Kansas City and Los Angeles shrunk to two because I worried that Doris was depressed without me.
In both situations, she was with caregivers who cared. But that's not the thought that prohibited my surrendering to joy.
Our pre-bed game! I feared my friends would find me odd if I left instructions for playing. So from Missouri and California I fretted.
Doris was fine when I arrived home from both trips. And at bedtime, like an actress in the lead for the entire run of the play, she waited on the couch for her cue.