Andy Adjusts to His New Home

If this narrative were strictly a linear one, I would be discussing the days of deciding to bring another dog in our house, choosing the puppy and bringing it home. I’m fairly certain we got Andy in June sometime. I had finished all of my interviews, was offered several jobs and accepted the one in NJ. I turned down both offers in the Bay area fairly quickly, but had the offer in San Diego came quicker, I most likely would have accepted the job out there. Unfortunately, the company in NJ that offered me a position needed a response from me, and the deadline for the decision there came well before the San Diego offer was made. How different my life would have been had I moved out there.

In the meantime, I sat around and waited for my adviser to read my thesis and give me the go-ahead to defend it. I pouted and sulked a lot. The guy was jerking me around taking his sweet ass time getting around to letting me defend.

I should have enjoyed the time off and the remaining time I had with Abby. I did play quite a bit with her, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as I should have. In the meantime, I watched Andy acquaint himself to his new home. I only spent a couple of months with Andy before I had to move. The most vivid memory I have of him is how pretty he was. I know I picked him out almost primarily because of his looks, but he was a cute puppy. He kept getting prettier as he aged. My power of this language isn’t strong enough to describe his pulchritude. There just aren’t enough words in this language to describe how pretty he was. His coat was soft, and he smelled so good. If a company could capture that puppy-smell of Andy’s in an air freshener, the shelves of these fresheners would never stay full because they would sell so fast. Andy felt good too. He was so ‘squishy’, making me want to hug and squeeze him any chance I could. I wanted to fawn all over him, but I had to refrain for a couple of reasons.

First, I didn’t want to make Abby jealous. Abby may have been my Baby Girl, but she could be jealous at times. The jealousy manifested itself in many ways depending on the situation and her mood. Another reason I held back from over-loving Andy was that I didn’t need two dogs pining over my departure. I didn’t need Andy becoming attached to me the way Abby had. I had been assured that Abby wouldn’t take my moving too hard, and I clung to that belief until I moved. I didn’t think Father would miss me.

Andy became quite attached to my mom, which was the way I hoped it would be. I worried that Andy would take too prominent a role in the house with my mom sacrificing love and attention that Abby would otherwise receive. Fortunately, when it came to loving the dogs, my mom’s affection was not a zero sum game. She loved them all, and they loved her. But with Andy, it was special. He clung to my mom for attention, love and protection. He gazed at her in a wide-eyed innocence. This was a look he never gave me. Don’t get me wrong, Andy would come to love me, but what he had with my mom was special. Andy quickly accepted our house as his new home and quickly made friends with my mom. Things worked out the way we planned it. He still had to establish relationships with me and more importantly the dogs.