At home with my human

I heard the unmistakable sound of my human unlocking the front door and ran at full speed, got there just as she was opening the door, barking and happily wagging my tail.

‘Hey Bak, hey there good boy!’ she said without her usual enthusiasm, is she not happy to see me today? I sat on the floor in confusion and watched her.

She dropped her keys on the small table by the door, then dropped 3 bags of food and an enormous roll of that paper she keeps in the kitchen. Her bag was spilling with those colorful papers she brings home from the office, pens and other items I didn’t recognize.

As she was taking her jacket and shoes off, I head a stream of words about supermarkets being extra crowded and who knows what else…

‘Buddy, the store was so crowded, I had to fight for my roll of toilet paper…and don’t even get me started on all the fresh produce being sold out by the time I got there. It’s like the apocalipse is here, but worse, there’ll be a huge food fight. Anyways, let’s get you dinner, I’ll unbag those later.’

I immediatel y perked up at the word dinner, my favorite meal of the day after she finally got home from being gone most of the day. She filled my bowl with water and plopped down onto the couch and gave me one of those smiles of hers.

‘Good news is I’m going to be home a lot more now buddy what with working from home and this restricted movement outside due to the virus…we’ll be spending a lot more time together.’

I didn’t know what she was on about but I was happy to hear she’d be spending more time at home with me. All the games we could play, maybe she’ll even crack open the box of toys she hid up in the closet and forgot about when we moved to this apartment.

She sighed and slowly got up and picked up the bags abandoned near the door, dragging towards the kitchen and putting stuff in their place. She was yet to pet me and that could only mean one of 2 things:

1.      She was upset with me;

2.      Someone outside made her sad.

She wasn’t around the appartment much today so my guess was option number two. I got angry and started barking in direction of the kitchen.

She rushed out to check on me.

‘What’s up buddy, is everything okay?’ she said as she scratched my ear.

There she is, that’s my girl Steph. I let her get back to her bags and watch with rapt attention for any morsel of food she might drop. After all, I was and always am hungry.

She knew what I was up to, she’s smart like that and she finished up with the bags and prepared her grilled chicken salad, gave me a piece of juicy chicken. Sometimes I loved human food more that I loved my special dog treats.

Another thing she never did was eat in front of the television, must be an unusual day indeed as she brought her salad with her and opened her other bag and pulled out the machine she works on. I tried to wedge my way in between that laptop thing and her left arm but she wouldn’t let me.

‘Later buddie, I have to catch up on world news first and check some emails before we play.’

She was no fun today.

The next day she woke up early to take me for our morning walk, then went back to bed. After what I assume was a good nap, she sprawled on the sofa, opened her laptop and told me she’s now working from home for the foreseeable future.

Things were looking up, she would pet me here and there, throw a toy across the room but she also shouted at me when I wanted to keep playing while she was trying to talk to someone on her laptop.

We got into a good routine of waking up early, going for the walk to the nearest dog park, coming back home for breakfast, then she would sit working in the living room and I would try to grab her attention.

When none of the neighbors where in the small communal garden, she would take me out there and we’d play catch for a bit. I noticed she seemed worried when another human from next door tried to bring their puppy there at the same time.

‘Respect social distancing please, can’t wait until we’re done to bring out your dog?’ she pleaded with the neighbor. I think I hear them say a curse word and the stomped away, puppy in tow.

No idea what that was, why wouldn’t she let other dogs and people near us? I guess it didn’t matter as long as she was there with me, it was fine.

Another day she'd take me for a little jog with hew, I would pretend to run in her trail when in reality I could run so much faster than her. We kept pace.

There was less and less people on the street whenever we went out and the dog park was basically deserted. I vaguely thought something strange must be going on, but I pushed the thought away. I had Steph with me and that was all I needed.

That night she lay on the carpet next to me and scratched my tummy for a while. She didn't say much, just sat quietly and let me lick her hand.

'Buddy, you're the best dog in the world.' she said before she got up to go to bed.

This was the good life, it went on for weeks and I was thrilled to be spending so much time with her. We’ve never had so much fun together before. Whatever was going on outside that scared her was really working in my favor, I got to spend so much more time with my human and the supply of treats was seemingly unlimited, but we did start to get those delivered rather than pick the up from the store ourselves.

Life was good and I was a very lucky dog indeed.