This Is Really How It Goes.

I remember the day I got Molly. I took her to my apartment and we kind of looked at each other like, "Now what?" She sniffed everything she could reach with her nose, and strained her neck toward the things she couldn't. I don't know if she realized at that moment that this was her new home and I was her new owner/friend/roommate. But there we were.

I ran miles and miles with that dog every day I lived in Norman. We were both pretty slim back then. She's barked at every dog, sniffed every phone pole, and wagged her tail all over that little chunk of Oklahoma. I took her to the field next door and taught her to fetch. Well, I tried to teach her to fetch. She seems to think I should be doing the fetching because, after all, I'm the one who threw it and if I want it back in my hand, I'm going to have to go get it myself. But she did love to run and chase me. She loves to bark and grunt and flop over on her back and kick her feet in the air. She was delightful company.

If I talked on the phone for more than about five minutes, she'd growl. Or was it growling? It was more like a mumbly-jumbly somersault of syllables, and I was convinced she was trying to join in the conversation. It was funny and then annoying and then just part of her personality.

I always thought it would be so romantic to have a dog that would sleep at my feet. Very romantic. So I'd call her when I'd crawl into bed at night and she'd jump up, turn a circle or two, and flump down at my feet. Awww. And then she'd jump off. A twin sized bed isn't terribly conducive to that level of romance. When I was sick, though, she would sleep there no matter how uncomfortable it was.

It was just Molly & me for a very long time, and we were like two peas in a pod. So much so, that when I left her with my parents while I was in Thailand for the summer of 2002, my mom said, "It's like having you around. She even rolls her eyes..." Yes, yes, my dog and I are quite alike.

That was years ago. Today, I'm home with her again. She's older, I'm working. She sleeps an awful lot. Now, when I call her, she might or might not respond. I thought it was her hearing, because the vet said at her age, hearing loss is common. Oh no, nope, nuh-uh, it is not hearing loss because you bet your cute patoot that when she hears the food hit the dish, she'll come running from across the house. Nope, she's just ignoring me. I'm pretty sure I annoy her.

She's also developed some...fun...old lady-isms, mainly of the digestive variety. We've been working with her lately to decrease the number of midnight "PLEASE let me outside!" emergencies, but there are other things that, well, we can't control. And evidently she can't either. If two dinner arrangements hadn't canceled on their own a couple weeks ago, I would have had to cancel them due to ... that smell. Wow, Dog.

But we can't leave her outside because she snacks. Yes, still. Yes, we have a shock collar now (I feel horrible using it, but worse than horrible when she comes in needing to floss, if you know what I mean). And she's still snacking. Old lady.

I just think it's amusing (and vaguely sad) that my dog is now an old lady. The sprightly pup she once was is still in there - you should see her with Matt - but she's slowly morphing into an old woman. Grumpy, flumpy, farty, snarky old woman. I've never had a dog long enough to watch them age, and they're not terribly dissimilar from humans.