Twice a week, I drive Poppy to a horse farm to ride a Welsh pony named Tapdance. From a distance it all seems very quaint: the bucolic smell of hay and alfalfa, farm hands mucking stalls, Poppy cantering around an arena softened by the grindings of recycled tennis shoes. However, when I cowboyed up to become a pony poppa, I didn't foresee how the gang of dogs that greeted our car at the barn would turn into a fierce addiction for my daughter, or how cunning a 9-year-old girl could be when she desperately wants something.
For the past year, Poppy has been lobbying us to get a dog. It started with casual hints about the cuteness of a newly adopted poodle mix at the barn or requests to swing by the animal shelter just to, "you know, say hello." Each puppy plea then became more akin to a business proposition than a young girl's pipe dream, and my little Alana Dershowitz had clever answers to all my dogged concerns. We'd be driving back from a successful day of riding, feeding and cleaning yellow horse spit off a metal bit, and Poppy would call casually from the back seat: "Dad, now would be the best time for me to get my dog."
"Oh really," I'd answer. "Why is that?"
"Well, I'm in fourth grade when students don't get too much homework so I could take really care of it."
"What about your brother?" I wasn't sure if London knew much about canines, other than saying Chiwowowow when he spotted the pooch from Taco Bell commercials.
"Oh, I could train Londy." As she droned on about how owning a beast would teach her a sense of duty, companionship and deep respect for the scholarship of Charles Darwin, I tried to spot flaws in her logic, a chink in her obviously rehearsed vocal armor.
"What about when we go away to see Grandpa Ben in Florida? Sometimes we're gone for two weeks. That's not really fair to a dog, is it?"
"I've got that part figured out, see. We could ask Jeremy and Eliza to watch her. We take care of Tiny when they're gone." Tiny is our neighbor's dog, and although I have never actually touched the petite pooch, we do feed it and let it out once in a while.
In all honesty, Poppy's brief almost had me convinced, but I knew it really wasn't me she had to sell, it was her mother and I told her so. Since Lala works at home, the mutt would spend the canine's share of the time with her. I explained to Poppy that getting a dog is a family decision, and her mother had full veto power. In fact, Lala had stated that any animal I brought into the house was my responsibility, and that's why I currently change the water and find fishsitters for a most catatonic Betta named Turquoise.
Lala has successfully avoided being hounded about hounds by remaining stoic and generally uninterested in reasons why Poppy needs to drag a furry quadruped along on the end of a rope. From where Lala's sitting, Poppy gets extreme dog love twice a week, and Lala doesn't have to worry about some black lab choking on a glitter pen, chewing on the couch or dropping a steamy load on the kitchen floor. That doesn't mean Poppy has given up, though. Just the other night, the dreamer of dogs pulled out a book of raffle tickets from her school. The prize was a fistful of cash, and Poppy immediately said she knew what she'd do with the money if she won.
"I'd save it for vet bills for when it's time to get me a dog," Poppy announced, obviously pleased with her response.
"Good planning," I said. I had to give her credit for such a preemptive strike.
"Good luck," Lala noted flatly.
"Good grief!" London whined, tired of the incessant Wilder whelping.
Robert Wilder's first book,
Daddy Needs A Drink
, was published last week. You can find more info at
.
