Ask Aunt Foley

Dear Aunt Foley:  Last week was supposed to be my week.  Daddy was on vacation and I was promised long walks, a trip to the Peddler’s Village, and maybe a hamburger.  Well it rained on my vacation week.  On Saturday Mommy and Daddy went out of the house and when they came home they tried to act all casual but I could smell the stank of other dogs on them.  They had cheated on me.  Should I forgive them?  Leo

Dear Leo:  I know exactly what you are talking about.  You are sitting at home nervously waiting for your parents to return.  You hear their car, the shutting of doors, the key in the lock, the door opening, then you see them, you run to them,  greet them with all the love in your heart, and then you get hit with the stench of another dog.  It is stunning, and you don’t know how to react.

I believe part of what makes us so angry is how casual our parents are about it.  They know they cheated.  Couldn’t they give us the respect of trying to cover it up?  Would it kill them to take a shower, wash their clothes, at least make some effort to hide their misdeed?   Nope, they just come strutting in like we are too dumb to notice we were cheated on.

And the worst part is we forgive them.  We can’t help ourselves.  Even if I advised you to shun them you wouldn’t be able to do it.  They are in our hearts, our blood, our souls, and, while we might be able to manage an hour of shunning, we cave.

But I will tell you what you can do.  When they come home all stinking of another dog you have to get that stink off of them.  If they don’t have the common decency to clean themselves, as soon as they sit, you jump on them and run yourself up and down them, then back and forth, and even flip them over if you can, to get your stank on them and the foreign stank off of them.  This process can take up to 15 minutes.  

I imagine, after 15 minutes of Chow rubbing, your parents will think twice about cheating on you.