We were living together for all of 3 weeks when it suddenly seemed like an excellent idea to get a dog. We had discussed it for a whole week and figured it was probably the right thing to do, what with the move having gone as well as it did. We seemed to like each other enough, and frankly, after chipping a corner of Aaron’s grandmother’s armoire, I had no interest in moving him out again. It would be like insurance against us breaking up. Who needed marriage? We were going for the canine plan! And anyway, what was the big deal? How long do these things live anyway? Twelve years, fifteen tops? And that’s in a place not surrounded by busy streets. Who knew? This dog could have bought it in ten seconds with one good wriggle out of its collar.
Armed with the above “logic,” we set out for BARQ, a no kill shelter in Williamsburg. There we met Roxie. A fun loving pit bull in the middle of an insane asylum. Roxie was caramel colored with a cute pink nose. The thing I liked most about her was that in a sea of hysterically barking animals, Roxie was all smiles. She was about 45 pounds of love that when attached to a leash was easily able to pull about 10 times her body weight. I’m not kidding. This pooch could have pulled a sled through the tundra carrying me and eight of my closest, largest friends single handedly…I mean, single paw-edly.
Now here’s the nice thing about choosing a pet with a partner, Aaron called after me as I flew through the air, “Not a great walker, eh?”
“What do you mean?” I shouted back over my shoulder and then lost consciousness as I flew into the side of a brick wall. When I came to I finished my sentence: “She’s just excited.”
The next day we visited the 92nd Street ASPCA in Manhattan. The Ritz Carlton of shelters, the ASPCA dogs had larger accommodations than we had in Brooklyn. It felt a little weird taking an animal from a place as great as this, toys, love, food and space, a veritable Disneyland for dogs, and shlep it to a basement apartment with a half a backyard. But when we met the dog with the longest tongue in the world, we decided to be selfish. This was our dog. The best thing is, the ASPCA will replace that slot with a dog from a kill shelter, so in the end we felt less guilty.
However, the minute we left with our bounding bundle of energy (see picture...just kidding. She wore herself out) we began to fight over her name. The ASPCA called her "Peanut" but clearly no one else ever had because she seemed to have no idea who the hell Peanut was. I decided to implement a new communication technique: Goal oriented fighting-- where I saw my goal, "Nugget" and steadily walk towards it. Why Nugget, you ask? Andrea Becker. Andrea Becker was a very cool girl I once new who had a dog named "Nugget."
Aaron made one of those "phts" sounds when I told him my great idea.
"Sounds like shit," he said.
"No! It sounds great!" I insisted.
"No I mean, it sounds like a nugget of shit," he replied.
Frankly, it did. I had been thinking of "Gold" which, looking back isn't a much better use of the word, "Nugget." Then I started getting so many gross images of that word in my head that writing this blog is freaking me out...
Needless to say, we named her Dee Dee Ramone after Dee Dee Ramone. (Wouldn’t it be funny if we named her Dee Dee Ramone after like, Fred Flintstone? That’d be crazy.) Aaron has always been a Ramone's fan. And I could sing, "Dee Dee is a Punk rocker!" Doesn't that work better that Nugget? Nugget is so not punk rock...
We are now completely in love. But the thing about love is, while it is great for things like getting over muddy paws on the sofa and 6AM lick attacks, it does not take dogs for walks or make sure you are home in time to feed them. That requires a live in boyfriend! Just kidding—Although Aaron would whole-heartedly disagree with the part about “kidding.” But bringing Dee Dee into the house gave us a whole lot of new things to fight about. We disagreed about the eating schedule, the location of the dog bed and whether or not to force her into a cage. However, she also had another, better impact on our life. We suddenly shared something that we both loved so much. It was a new experience for us both.
When you live together, couples often continue to maintain certain important separations in their lives. In our case, we still have his and hers friends, his and hers furniture and his and hers books—not to mention a whole host of other things. However, when we began living together we suddenly had an apartment that belonged to both of us, not to mention milk and garbage bags. When Dee Dee came along, we added something new to our bond—an adorable dog that we often call our monkey. And you can be sure that the minute she tried to scramble out of her collar for the first time, we got a harness. We’re gonna try and keep her for as long as possible.
