My dog is passive-aggressive.

Wouldn’t it be great if Naboo would just sidle up next to me and say, “Hey, Em, I really hate it when you ignore me and play with the baby.  How about a little love my way?”  Even better, when she’s staying with friends, if she could just snuggle up in my friend’s lap and grumble, “You’re nice and all, but I absolutely hate it when Emily drops me off and doesn’t come back for two days. Could you tell her I’m angry and sad?”

Either would be so much more productive than sneaking away from the baby’s and my tea party to crap on my husband’s shoes (this morning) or, when we were out of town, running directly to the living room to plant a turd on my friend’s welcome mat after a long session of outdoor play.

Apparently, my next reading project.

I am making this confession with the full knowledge that once I do, I may never get free dog-sitting again.  And I apologize to anyone who has ever kept my dog, because I should have recognized the pattern years ago.  Previously, the mishaps of my otherwise well-behaved and housebroken dog were infrequent and subtle enough to explain away with “perhaps she didn’t know which door to go to” or “darn it, I got so caught up with the kids, I forgot to let the dog out.”  Over the last several months, however, in addition to the two examples above, there was also the circle of urine she peed around me, not once but twice, after I spent too much time away from home over a weekend.  Apparently she thought I was her personal territory.

It is now obvious that her antics are not accidents.  She is speaking without words.  Realizing this, it’s up to me to get out that book by “The Dog Whisperer” and see if I can get my own message through to her.  I don’t know how you say it in dog, yet, but in English, it’s something like, “Quit sh!tting in the house or you’re going back to the kennel!”

For perspective, when a friend of mine got married, his dog pushed his new wife down the stairs.  When that didn’t work, the dog tried to blow her up by turning on the gas stove before she got home from work.  I guess I should just be happy that my dog hasn’t hired a hit on the baby.

When that happened, the LORD told the donkey to speak, and it asked Balaam, “What have I done to you that made you beat me three times?” Numbers 22:28