I need!

I realized the other day that I really haven't written about Izzy much.  Shame on me!  I feel like a bad parent that's been caught playing favorites.

I suppose I have been.  Blake, Ernie and Georgie are the three boys in the house.  They are so easy to write about.  The words appear on the screen by magic.  They are . . . hmmm.  What are they?  They are buffoons.  They are larger than life.

They are idiots.

Bunny and Gazelle are likewise easy to write about.  They ooze personality out of their pores.

Not to imply that Izzy doesn't ooze too.  She has just as much of a dripping, gushing personality as the rest of the pets, with slimy dollops sliding off the counter to land into a gelatinous blob of goop on the floor.  But Izzy is a lady.  Izzy is above all of the shenanigans of the rest of the crew.  And she isn't spectacularly clumsy, nor clever, nor stupid.  I don't know what to say about a normal pet.

(Pause)

Yeah, I really don't!

I'm going to try anyway.  Izzy is the kind of kid that is fine being by herself.  That is to say, she prefers to be with people, but she can fill the time with her own projects.  She's the kid that likes to read and make mud pies, or play with legos or Nintendo.  She's a perfectly happy, perfectly adjusted, and a perfectly friendly dog.  She howls when you leave for work in the morning, but for the bulk of the day I imagine that she just sleeps or plays with her toys.

Izzy is more than friendly.  She loves everybody.  Her only downfall is she's a licker . . . she can get you from across the room.  And not just a little slurp, either.  The force of her rubbery tongue can part your lips.  Blech!

But it's nice that I don't have to worry about her with strangers around.  She likes kids too, which is unusual for an unsocialized dog with no manners.  Our little neighbor who is about three years old came over for a visit and Izzy behaved to perfection.  Georgie has small-man-syndrome and I have to watch him like a hawk, but with Izzy all I have to do is maintain a general-common-sense-type of awareness for things like squeezing or tail pulling.  You know, the kind of stuff any dog owner should be aware of when little kids are around.

Izzy is just as funny as all my other pets that I write about regularly, but somehow she doesn't get herself into the same convoluted, comical predicaments.  She chases with the laser pointer with a mediocre amount of grace, but isn't quite as enamored with it as Georgie.  She loses interest quickly, or perhaps she's just being polite and stepping aside to let Georgie have his fun.  Like an indulgent little mama.

But she isn't really like a mama.  She's more like a little kid pretending to be a mama, and Georgie is her baby.  He's her dolly. 

Also similar to a little kid, Izzy doesn't know what she needs, she just knows she needs it.  As soon as you walk in the door, she needs.  She sits on the floor, wiggles her bum, looks at you with huge sad eyes, and whines.  It doesn't matter that she can't speak with words--I can still understand her easily.  Phonetically rendered, the sound she makes looks like this:  oooh, oooh, oooh!  Imagine hearing it in a sobbing, doggie voice:  I nee . . . eee . . . eeed!

If you ask her what she needs, the ooohs raise up in pitch.  And then, the best part of all, if you keep talking to her she'll actually grunt in frustratation because you didn't give in.  Uhhh!  Sometimes she farts at the same time, so that takes the guesswork out of what she needs.

Izzy is the most humanlike dog I've ever met.  When you talk to her she watches you like she's following along intently.  Then when you pause, she makes a noise like she knows it's her turn to contribute to the conversation.