Life of Me: Dog Mom

I like to say my life is boring. In the grandest scheme of things, my life is indeed pretty freakin’ boring. I mean, come on. I am an extremely introverted [read: granny life] single mom. That pretty much sums me up. But the dogs do help make my life less boring. If I’m not telling Bucket Head stories, I’m telling Lola or Otto stories. My fur children. My peeps. My squad. My crew. I have almost as many pictures of the dogs in my phone as I do of my small human. It’s normal.

Funnily enough, we have never actually picked out our pets. Like most of my relationships, it just happened- not sure how. They’ve all basically been inherited and we just go with it.

Lola

We inherited Lola when we moved. Seriously. While we were living with my aunt, one day she said “Coco’s sister is coming to live with us. Her name is Cocoa so I’m naming her Lola.” Ok. Cool. (She has more of a backstory, but that’s the short version.) She’s just a tiny sausage of sweet sass. She loves the dorky sweaters I’ve always wanted my little dog to wear and is always down for a good Netflix binge so long as belly rubs are provided. When we moved, my aunt basically said “bye Lola. I’ll miss you.” That’s how I found out she was moving with us.

Otto

We also inherited Otto. The Boy’s teacher found this furry little street urchin in the school parking lot one night on her way home from work. She spent a almost a month trying to locate his original family and hoping her husband would forget that Otto wasn’t actually theirs. Unfortunately he didn’t forget and told her the pup either needed a new home or to go to the shelter. After a lot of Bucket Head begging and a long, serious discussion on how we’re just keeping him to help him find his family, we took him in.  Clearly, he’s been through some shit too, but we’ll safe that for another time.That was about two years ago. Safe to say he’s not just crashing in our kennel anymore. He’s a permanent member of the family. He’s kind of a neurotic mess but adorable. He actually fits right in with us.

Non- animal people give me “The Look” when I talk about these guys’ antics, but really – they’re so weird. I’m one of those dog moms and you know what? It’s totally fine. Other paw parents can completely relate.

Weirdness Exhibit A:

Last week, The Boy went with his dad for the weekend. For some reason, Otto was sadder than usual about this and moped around all weekend. He went so far as to take his sadness into the child’s room to grab his blankie and dragged it around until he came home. Really. He took it with him to every room, slept on it and wouldn’t let Lola snuggle with him on it. Legit. If Lola tried to cuddle up with him on The Boy’s blanket, he growled at her, yanked it from under and found another place to set himself up. This went on. all. weekend.

Yea. I have a zoo. It’s bananas.