Word: dogged
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...parenting magazines we read after I got pregnant instructed us to prepare the dog gradually for the baby's arrival. Wean him off the furniture first, the experts said. Let him sniff something of her before she arrives from the hospital--a blanket, a cap--to allay his suspicion. When she does come home, take care that I, his special person, do not carry the baby in. All this will teach him to embrace or at least tolerate the new member of the family and not act like a dingo and drag her away. The articles didn't say that...
None of the research prepared me for what actually happened: the moment my child entered my world, there was no more room in it for my dog...
...culture, this is the hate that dare not speak its name. Consider as evidence the best-seller lists, which are crowded with odes to mutts by philosophers and poets. Admitting to anything less than worshipping my dog will lump me with--heaven forfend--the cat people. The cult of the caninophiles does not allow for defection. Dog lovers will remind me that he has given me many things, not least among them undying loyalty. I know that. I even admit he has helped equip me for the trials of parenthood, not least among them the manual handling...
...possible my love for him will return. It may take a Lassie moment in which he saves my child from a grizzly, but such an encounter is not so likely in New Jersey. In the meantime, he persists. The dog follows me like a bad smell, settling at my feet as I read my child a bedtime story, panting by my knee as I cook my daughter's dinner. Dog lovers would call it unconditional love. They're wrong. A dog's love comes with a lengthy prenup: vet bills when it gets diarrhea; peroxide baths when it gets skunked...
...know what they say in Sicily: if you want to kill a dog, you don't cut off the tail, you cut off the head...