Direct quotes from me, talking to my dog, Eddie:
“You’re a good baby.”
“You’re MY good baby.”
“You’re a goodie.”
“My sweet little baby.”
“My good little baby!”
“Who’s my good baby?”
“Are you a good little baby?”
And so on, all day long.
But let’s unpack that.
I realize “good” is doing a lot of work in those comments, especially for an immaculately untrained animal that:
Eats our socks (and barfs them up).
Jumps on me when I don’t want him to, runs from me when I call him.
Barks at every dog that walks by our house (ostensibly because he believes he’s the only dog who deserves to exist).
Jumps up on every house guest until we give him an expensive rawhide to eat instead.
Jumps up on people in other houses—including the host of a barbecue where he ruined all the hamburgers and murdered the entire party. That almost made the papers.
Legendarily escaped my supervision and ate the entire chicken shawarma picnic dinner of a five year-old girl and her father at Smith Park, in Chicago. That should have made the papers.
And just last week while on a run with me, lunged for a sandwich that a homeless man was eating on a bench, in Humboldt Park. I barely managed to yank the leash fast enough to avert a travesty of social justice—I had not a dollar on me—that would have made the papers: “Bougie Bernedoodle Unburdens Unhoused Man of Lunch; Jagoff Jogger’s Profuse Apology Falls Flat.”
If that’s a good dog, what would a bad dog look like?
And yet: “You’re so cute I could just poop my pants!”
Also: “My little funny bunny!”
