Puppy Fits

Ruby is my dog. Her father was a very handsome Siberian Husky and her mother was a dainty little Catahoula Leopard Dog. Ruby has striking blue eyes and a question mark tail and is very beautiful. She, like most other good looking dogs, uses this attribute to her complete advantage. I guess you really can't expect much more from a dog that cost $25 on Craigslist and since her arrival has been spoiled rotten to the core.

Ruby has puppy fits. You may be wondering what this entails.. and the answer is simple. A puppy fit consists of 5-10 minutes of sheer hell in the form of sprinting, panting, barking, talking (if you're half Husky, apparently), and jumping from one piece of furniture to another in a highly sporadic manner. The severity of a puppy fit, of course, lies with the candidate at hand. Ruby is 6 months old and 45 pounds.. I feel confident that one day, she will blossom into a majestic creature that poses snout-up on a mountain top somewhere in Siberia... but for now, she is very much in her awkward teenage years.

Initiating a puppy fit is much simpler than you would imagine; all one really needs is a racquetball. And it must be a raquet ball. Tennis balls are much too dense to deliver that perky bounce that drives a dog crazy. Smaller junk machine kaleidiscope-esque bouncy balls are much too bouncy and very hard for a dog of such clumsy nature to tackle down. Racquetballs, on the other hand, are ideal because they provide just the right amount of bounce and fit perfectly in most dogs' mouths (All of this was discovered by complete accident, of course, but now I feel inclined to share).

On the evening of August 31, 2011 (last night)... the puppy fit to end all puppy fits occurred, right here in this very apartment. In retrospect, I could honestly be held responsible for instigating the whole thing. Blame boredom mixed with procrastination. While entertaining, said fits are also mildly terrifying sometimes, and at one point I honestly thought one of my roommates might be attacked by this viscious creature that had replaced my little blue-eyed dreamboat. In the aftermath, I was trying to figure out what would trigger such an episode. It occurred to me that maybe this was Ruby's way of releasing some inner demons that were really stressing her out. It was then that I realized that maybe we should all have a puppy fit once in awhile. Perhaps not in the way that Ruby goes about it (she is a dog, afterall), but wouldn't it do us all a world of good to go outside and run around in a completely unplanned and organic fashion? Or-in the appropriate place and time, of course-maybe just let out a yell/scream/holler/jibberish.. one that satisfies you to the core and makes you forget the worries of your day, even if for just a second. Keeping all of that in cannot possibly be good for us as individuals, let alone as a society.

I've read that we can learn alot of things from dogs. While I do not necessarily agree with most of Ruby's day-to-day methods (I've lost 3 pairs of panties in the last month, not to mention her love of pillows as play toys), her puppy fits may or may not be a life lesson that sticks with me. For now, my mission is to formulate a way in which to combat her spazz-attacks in a way that is safe and effective. Wish me luck.