And Phoebe was what I imagine it must be like to share a couch with Janice Dickinson after she snorts a line of cocaine and crushed Pop Rocks.
Phoebe was a mess. A rescue from a pet hoarding situation, she came into Will's family as an effort to help ease Charley's horrible separation anxiety. The experiment proved successful and Charley stopped trying to eat the door until she bled every time Will left the house. This was great news for Charley, but bad news for Will, since Phoebe's every move was big. What I mean is, if Phoebe wanted to cross a room from one end to the other, she wouldn't walk, or even run. She would pursue this goal with a conviction meant for the Ironman and a grace like a 50-pound toddler on Benadryl. And once she would get to the end of the room, she would quickly forget why she crossed it in the first place, reverse course, and blunder in the other direction, all the while her tongue flailing, her eyes bulging, and despite her batman ears, she would be oblivious to the shrieks coming from Will and me ordering her to Stop! Come! Sit! Fortheloveofgod!
Meanwhile, Will and I were getting close. As is true for everyone in the first stages of dating, I was putting my best face forward and doing my best to hide any physical flaws or character defects, so I would leave it to Will to do all of the disciplining and yelling at Phoebe's manic misbehavior and just watch the anarchy with polite, quiet amusement. (As they always do, my character defects would eventually bubble to the surface and explode like a coke bottle in the freezer and I would contribute my own hollering reprimands: Phoebenooooo don't eat the sofa/piano/windowsill/carpet/shoes/purse/blanket/towels/underwear/vibrator!*)
One night after another one of our wonderful dates that had me falling head over heels for this guy, we came home to an......odor.
There is a feeling of dread that comes with an odor like this. You know it's bad and your mind starts reeling to what degree of bad could it be. Certainly you didn't bury a dead body a week ago, you would remember that. A clogged toilet? Couldn't be. The toilet would have to be the size of a wading pool. Broken sewage pipe? More of a possibility, and yes, that would be bad. But when you add Phoebe in the equation, it's more likely that she's involved in the reason behind your growing alarm.
And she was.
There was Phoebe. In her crate. Covered. Smothered. Smeared.
To our horror, we realized she had been in her crate with a bad case of diarrhea. And, being an inquisitive pooch with minimal brain power and an insatiable appetite, she decided to eat this curious delicacy shooting out of her ass. Of course, this bad decision made her sick and she vomited. But after puking, there would be the delicacy again....just begging to be savored.....
So while we were out taking advantage of a beautiful summer night and staring into each other's young lover eyes, Phoebe was home - pooping, eating, puking, over and over, ad nauseam (such an appropriate term right now, don't you think?).
PHOEBEEEEOHMYGOOOOOD is the only thing I remember Will yelling. In the early stages of dating, the last thing you want to do in front of your new girlfriend is strip naked in a panicked frenzy and half-carry, half-drag your squirming, vomit-and-poo-covered dog into the small stand-up shower, coughing and gagging and moaning expletives and curses of disbelief.
But he did. And as I watched him, I knew he was never going to give her up. Not even if she did this a hundred times. He loved her. And I knew that my love for a man who showed that amount of compassion would outweigh my fear of maybe someday living with a dog who would come to be known as Phoebenooooooo.
*Yes, she really did try/succeed to eat all of these things.
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