You know that I have been toying with the idea of getting a dog. A tiny, cute, sweet, older dog. A hypo-allergenic, house-trained dog. A dog I could cuddle with, talk to, care for, grow old with.

A dog like Miss Ellie.

Miss Ellie belongs to my sister Leigh Ann, who rescued her from a puppy mill during COVID. Ellie had lived her life out in a kennel, birthing one litter of puppies after another. She was too old to be of service to the puppy mill any longer, and Leigh busted her out.

Ellie was unaware of the life she was about to embark upon. Cushy beds and delicious refrigerated food, a big house in which to roam, a dog run in which to poop. And Leigh to love her and cherish her and take her to the lake house in Georgia.

But, Leigh travels for work.

She normally gets a sitter for Ellie, because it would be beyond cruel to stick her back in a kennel. But a couple of weekends ago, the dog sitter was at a wedding in Hawaii and couldn’t get there until Monday. And this is where I come in.

I couldn’t say yes fast enough. Not only am I bananas over this dog (although she barks at me, even when she hears my voice on the phone.) But I was excited to get a trial run on having a dog of my own.

I am an intelligent, experienced woman. I can do things. I know things. I can keep a tiny, cute dog for two days. How bad could it be?

So off I went to Leigh’s lovely home and her even lovelier dog.

Ellie didn’t bark at me when I got there. She was actually eager to see me and danced around. I knew she needed to go out, so out we went to her dog run, cum potty. Everything was very convenient, with little bags by the back door and a trash can for the sole purpose of depositing treasures collected during these special times.

Leigh had pre-portioned food for Ellie, enough for the weekend. So I retrieved a baggie from the fridge, with a fat patty of soft food inside, and squished it up. Then, because I am hard of seeing, I dumped it into the water bowl. Oops. Quickly, so quickly, because Ellie was desperately trying to get to her food, I whisked the bowl away, dumped out the disgusting mess, got her fresh water and retrieved another baggie from the fridge.

All good, except I was one baggie short. We shall deal with that later.

We enjoyed an evening of cuddling and binging Hallmark movies.

We went to sleep in our respective beds. And at precisely 5:30 a.m. Ellie barked me awake. We took care of her pressing business, and she enjoyed a delicious breakfast. I attempted to return to bed, but nay, nay. We were up. The day was uneventful. Cuddles and coffee, cuddles and my word games, cuddles and TV, cuddles and multiple trips to the dog run.

Miss Ellie requires cuddles and lots of them. If not, she pawed my hand as if to say, “Put that back on me.” And so I did.

We went for a walk and she marked every nook and cranny as her own. She is very possessive. “This is mine. That is mine. You are mine.”

I had a ZOOM call at 5:00 to discuss an upcoming writers workshop I’m attending. I set up the laptop on the island and settled myself on a comfy stool. One of the features of a stool is that stabilizing yourself requires placing your feet on the rung, which causes your lap to disappear.

I put Ellie on the floor. She started barking. I picked her up, but she couldn’t get settled because of the no lap issue, so we spent the entire ZOOM call with her squirming to get settled, a fluffy white head peeking into my ZOOM frame off and on. My sister-in-law Diane (with whom I will be traveling) wanted to know when I had gotten a dog.

At one point in the evening, Ellie began dancing around, barking and carrying on. We had just been out. I had just fed her. Every time I tried to pick her up she backed away. What was wrong?

Timmy’s in the well?

I finally took her out again and then gave her a treat, picked her up and put her in my newly restored lap. We were once again in the zone.

That was when I noticed the itchy red welts on my arm and that my right eye was swollen and both were itchy and teary. I loaded up on Benedryl.

ShihTzus are a hypo-allergenic breed.

Tell that to my eye.

The next morning at precisely 5:30, she barked me awake. This time, after her morning ablutions, I was able to go back to sleep, By the time I was awake, dressed and packed up, the real dog sitter had arrived, fresh from Hawaii.

I hugged Miss Ellie goodbye.

I went home, buried my clothing in a shallow grave in the backyard, took what Adam calls a Silkwood Shower, and settled into my dog-free house.

It was surprisingly sad not to have Ellie at my feet or in my chair. But my experiment had convinced me that a dog is not in my future, although I will happily keep Miss Ellie or the Wagener pups when needed. Until then I will remember my text exchange with Leigh when I asked her about Ellie needing to be cuddled every minute. She said I didn’t have to indulge her every whim.

C: “That face gets her what she wants and she knows how to use it.”

L: “She is basically not good for anything. She doesn’t do one thing for me — she is a taker.”

Leigh is a liar.

But I know what you are really curious about: how did I manage to get another baggie of food?

I’ll never tell.