SiriDog hates the rain. Like most small dogs, she’s a bit of a diva, a bit daft, and she doesn’t like getting her fur wet or being cold. So when we woke this morning to some near-freezing rain, and i took her outside for her morning wee, i was treated to full-on Dopey Diva mode.

First she goes to the side stairs of the porch. One step down, she realizes it is raining and comes back up. Then she goes to the front porch stairs, and like usual, seems surprised and peeved to see that it is raining there, too. She looks at me as if to say, “Now what do i do?”

She trots over to the side stairs again. Sure enough, it’s still raining there. So she goes back to the front side again. Yup. Still raining. Back and forth one more time, just to be sure.

“How do you expect me to pee? It’s raining everywhere!”

“Siri, we are not going back inside until you pee.”

She starts down the front stairs. Two stairs down, she gets hit with a big drop from the eave and runs back up. She scoots around my legs like they’re a box on the highway and plants her tookis at the front door.

“Nope. You gotta pee first.”

She barks at me in her annoyed voice.

“But i’ll get wet!”

“Too bad. Go pee.”

She stares at me.

“Siri… Now! It’s too cold out here to be playing this game!”

“Exactly! Now let me back in! I’ll just go in there, where it’s warm and dry.”

She wags her tail.

“No. The pads are not supposed to be your primary pee spot. They’re for times when i’m not home. Besides, you miss it a quarter of the time. I’M COLD! WILL YOU GO PEE ALREADY!?!?!?!”

She sniffs in my general direction and then heads back down the stairs at the speed of an elderly sloth. She wees about 6 inches from the bottom stair and then trudges back up, scowling at me like i made her eat brussel sprouts.

She is still sniffing. Not sad sniffs, mind you, but the sniffs of an overly-powdered aging socialite who is forced to fly coach. She is inconvenienced. She is wet. And she is mad as hell.

We go back inside, i give her a biscuit, and she forgets she had to pee in the rain.

Then i got to thinking… SiriDog and i aren’t really so different. How many times in my life have i taken a slightly different approach to the same old same old, essentially just changing stairwells to the same yard, and been surprised to find that it is still raining. And when confronted with that reality, shouted indignantly to my Master/God/Goddess/Universe, “How do you expect me to do what You ask? I will never make it! And it’s gonna take too much work!” because i feel like i’m expected to pee in the rain.

Kind of humbling, since i generally consider myself smarter than a chihuahua.

But it is also true in that we can both be distracted from anger and misery by a small treat. So i suppose it isn’t all bad. I rather like that quality in myself.

I don’t dare compare myself to the way she humps her toys before she tears them apart. If there is any commonality there, i’ll let my therapist deal with it.

********

And now, in the relaxing part of the afternoon, we are sitting together on the couch. Me in my slippers with a nice cup of tea, her buried under her little throw blanket and snoring. We are companionable. Compatible. Sympatico. But i do like to think that i’m not as much of a diva. And that i don’t snore as badly. (However, i know one of those things is definitely not true.) In any case, there are worse things in the world than sharing some traits with my dog. I think dogs, in general, tho simpler minded, are more pure and loving of heart. And like every other human on the planet, my jaded heart can use a little purity and loving.

It does make me wonder, tho, if SiriDog thinks of me the same way.