Hail to the dogs

Everybody knows that dogs have certain ways about them, which people who don’t love them call “faults.”

We’ll call them quirks.

I live with four Cavalier King Charles Spaniels: Little Tony, his common-law wife, Peach, and her two sons, Boone and Kit.

And they’re getting quirkier.

For example, I have a little staircase in front of the couch to make it easier for the dogs to climb up, but Little Tony and Peach refuse to use it.

They want an elevator.

They sit at the bottom and bark to be lifted onto the couch.

I’m quirky myself, and once I’m parked on the couch, I don’t want to get up. So first I encourage them to use the steps, then I beg, and finally I give up and get them.

Plus when I pick them up, I can’t help but kiss them and sing them their theme songs.

Wait, what?

Doesn’t your dog have a theme song?

Here’s Tony’s: Teeny Tiny Tony, Tiny Tony, He’s a tiny dog, He’s a teeny tiny.

I will spare you Peach’s theme song, which is even better.

Now I know what you’re thinking:

Maybe they don’t use the staircase so they’ll get hugged, kissed, and serenaded with an incredibly great theme song.

Can you blame them?

Maybe people should have theme songs.

Our songs would be about how small we are, or conversely, how tall, nice, or adorable.

It would be our own personal “Hail to the Chief."

It would boost our self-esteem when we were getting on chairs.

Meanwhile, the dogs never sit on the actual seat cushions of the couch, they sit only on the back cushions, deforming every single pillow. There are three back cushions, and each one is flattened from the top, so they ball up.

You can imagine how comfortable this is.

Have you ever rested against a globe?

Come on over.

Also, the couch looks terrible, with the three cushions lined up like basketballs in a rack.

Luckily, the couch is covered with a quilt to protect it from dog hair.

There’s good news.

If your couch looks like crap because of your dogs, you’ll never see it because it will be under a quilt to protect it from your dogs.

The answer to this insanity is staring me in the face.

Keep the dogs off the couch?

No, get a new couch.

The quirkiest of the dogs is Kit, who has decided that the water bowl in the kitchen belongs to him, and he guards it all day long. I looked online and learned this is called resource guarding, a hard behavioral problem to solve.

But I’m trying.

I put three water bowls in the kitchen, hoping Kit would guard one and let the other dogs drink from the other two. But no. Kit spent all day pinging between the three bowls like a pinball.

Remember pinball machines?

No?

Tilt?

Well, pretend.

Anyway, next I moved his water bowl out of the kitchen and put it in the family room, near the crappy couch with the quilt cover and the useless stairs.

Where, of course, it looks super crappy.

And now, Kit guards his family-room water bowl from morning until night. Sometimes I don’t see him all day because he’s at post.

This is the safest water in the tristate area.

I should put my jewelry in the water bowl.

Meanwhile I give the other dogs water in the kitchen, but if I set their water bowl down, Kit hears it and comes running.

So I have to hold the bowl while the other dogs drink.

Of course, there are three other dogs, and they are thirsty all the time.

I figure I spend three hours out of every day watering dogs or lifting them onto couches, ottomans, and chairs.

I don’t know how people are bored in quarantine.

I’m busy getting nothing done.

And singing.

Look for Lisa’s first historical novel, “Eternal,” coming on March 23, 2021. Also look for Francesca’s debut novel, “Ghosts of Harvard,” on sale now.