The Great Puppy Deception

Puppies are deceptively cute.  If you ever find yourself in a pet store surrounded by these painfully adorable creatures, don’t be fooled into thinking that nothing that cute can possibly harm anything.  Remember the movie Gremlins?

I think that’s why they’re built so bloody cute.  So people want to pamper them and hug them and kiss them.  Otherwise, nobody would ever want a puppy because they’re nothing but charming little demolition machines. 

When I decided to get a puppy, I found a cute picture of a cute dog in a cute book and knew I needed this improbable cuteness in my life.  I looked for a breeder and in no time found a woman willing to get rid of 8 adorable little puppies.

That should be the first clue that puppies aren’t so fabulous.  You can always find someone willing to get rid of them.

When I picked her up, I couldn’t believe a creature could be so inconceivably cute in all her tiny black fluffiness.  I was elated. 

That night, I realized I’d ruined my life. 

I put her in a crate and as soon as the door was locked, she yelped. For hours.  Early the next morning, I drifted off to sleep to the dull sound of a puppy in the throes of death.  Naturally, the downstairs neighbors complained to management as they did every time I dropped a pen on the floor.  I admitted the possession of an unauthorized organism and paid the pet deposit to make everyone happy but me.
 
Another day, I got home from work to find puppy stains all over the carpet and both cats hiding safely on top of the refrigerator.  I thought I saw one cat with a carving knife and a nervous twitch, but I can’t be sure.  Turns out I hadn’t locked the dog’s crate so my apartment became her lavatory and the cats her chew toys.   The kitties were never the same after that.

A few weeks later, we visited my parents’ house. Within two days she destroyed some fancy wood molding, ruined the carpet, and terrorized away at least five lives from mom’s elderly cat.  My parents are civilized people so when they threw me out of their house, they made sure I landed in the grass.

The puppy shed her unbelievable cuteness with every month and every destruction.  Today, she is eight years old, fully trained, can catch a frisbee, and does pretty much anything I tell her to short of fixing dinner or driving me to work (but I’m working on that).  She’s not quite as enchantingly cute, but she’s also not teetering precariously on the brink of death.
 
But it took at least 2 years of nonstop training and cleaning to get here.

So the next time you find yourself looking at puppies and thinking how cute and fabulous they are, don’t be fooled.  This is just an evil puppy device designed to ruin your life for a while.  If you can’t handle it, adopt a dog instead.