Praise the Dog

I got a bird. In the traditional Female Stevens Family fashion, I acquired an animal without thinking of the consequences.

I can't help myself. Whenever any hapless critter comes within a galaxy reach of my fingertips, my ovaries send a direct message to my brain reading, "PUPPY BABY BIRDIE KITTY CUDDLE SNUGGLE PONY FEED CARE BABY ANIMAL NEED NEED NEED NEED NEED!"

Or something like that, anyway. It's genetic. I won't even go into mom and grandma, seeing as they were going into that bird store looking for a fourth canary.

So this is where I was, sitting in the bird shop, holding a tiny conure. Petting its tiny feathers. Watching it turn its tiny head up at me. Meeting eye to tiny eye.

... When an insistent voice of reason sat in my gut started whispering: you have roommates, you need money, it's gonna live for 30 years, what about school, you move a lot, life is too complicated ... pain and misery shall rain upon you ..... you will spend the rest of your days in a world without Johnny Depp movies or Starbucks Passion Tea or Michael Phelps' abs ...

That was when my ovaries kicked my voice of reason in the balls.

But, as it flailed away, the voice managed one last pained whisper to my reproductive organs before collapsing completely: you have ... you have ... a bird dog .......

Ah, yes, my ovaries replied, the dog. Yes, well ... well ... yes .... I'm sure ... I'm sure something will, you know, work out ..... awwwww look how cute it's nibbling my finger!

But, the truth is, I don't just have a bird dog. I don't even have The Bird Dog. I have a Brittany.

I have the Chase Anything That Moves Dog. Worst nightmare for anything smaller than a breadbox. She is The Warrioress, The Hunter, The Exterminator.

As a family friend once put it, she kind of reminds you of, you know,

a velociraptor.

So, naturally, I bought the bird. Meanwhile, my voice of reason was writhing somewhere near my toenails.

He's been around for about a week now. I named him Salsa Pissanya (because when we were running through potential names, at hearing the name Anya my grandma shouted, "PISSONYA!").

Most of the time when I get him out, I lock Aspen in the back room. To keep her from drowning in a pool of her own saliva.

If I do get him out with her around, I hold him to my chest in a death grip or keep him wrapped in a blanket and tell her "no no". She can't even really see him as she sits next to me and shakes.

But this morning, as I was holding him and talking to mom next to the slider, I did something utterly, supremely stupid. I relaxed one hand. I got distracted. And he got loose.

His wings are clipped, he couldn't go anywhere, really. He just sort of fluttered to the ground with a little thud where Aspen was sitting. She froze. He froze. I leaped toward him. But not before I noticed her looking from him, and then to me, then back again. She didn't move. She knew. The dog that has spent the past seven years of her life in a desperate attempt to catch one had a bird handed to her on a silver platter and she didn't move.

She wasn't shaking. She wasn't drooling (okay, maybe she was, but it was a smaller lake ) ...

As I straightened up, she shifted her gaze from me, to my mom, to the treat cupboard.