Doggie play date

I don't have children, so when I want to channel the child in me via Candyland or the playground, I live vicariously through other people who have them.



Or I schedule play dates for the closest thing that I have to my child: my dog.


So the other day, I borrowed a colleague's 4-pound Yorkshire Terrier to play with my 65-pound German Shepherd/Rottweiler mix.

Or rather, I gave my dog a new, live squeaky toy.

Chloe LOVED Georgie, but the tiny, 6-month-old Yorkie didn't want to have anything to do with my giant dog who kept pawing at her and trying to get her to play. To defend herself, Georgie would leap up as high as she could go - which was nearly as high as my dog's nose - and squeak. It was hilarious.


And also a little sad, so after a few minutes, I took pity on her and started carrying her around the apartment as my own little armpit ornament. Then, because I felt ridiculous carrying around a dog, I went back to work to meet up with another colleague, Amanda, and the four of us took a trip to the nearby dog park.

While the three of us walked - Amanda, Chloe, and I - Amanda carried poor Georgie because she was too little to walk five whole blocks. She is such a pathetic excuse for a dog!

When we got to the dog park with the two city dogs, Georgie tore off and hid behind trees, below benches, and finally crawled into Amanda's bag to get away from Chloe, who was chasing her and continuing to try to get her to play. So after several minutes of Chloe's sitting and waiting for Georgie to crawl out of the bag, which she was not going to do out of her own volition, I decided to distract Chloe and once again attempt to desensitize her to water using the kiddie pool provided at the dog park for the drool machines.


Chloe likes water if it's in the context of the amount that can fit in her water bowl. She is terrified of pools, probably ever since I lowered her in the huge one in my parent's backyard, then watched as she immediately scrambled out and hid. And she's even more terrified of rain - more specifically thunderstorms.


She also hates baths, and literally runs from the bathroom if she's resting in there and I turn on the water in the bathtub, even if it's for my shower. When she hears water running in the tub and then sees me coming to get her, she actually pees herself in terror. Poor thing. But who wants to cuddle with a stinky dog?


I at least have made headway with bath time. She now gets into the bathtub on her own when I ask her to - which is helpful since it was a struggle to lift a squirming 64-pound dog into the tub in the first place - and tolerates it as long as I don't dump any water on her head or near her ears.

But when we were at the dog park, I was watching an owner throw a ball into the pool with a big black dog diving in after it, then rolling around in the water. It was adorable on the exceptionally hot day, so I thought Chloe would enjoy cooling off between terrorizing a dog weighing 60 pounds less than her.

Since she wouldn't get in the pool on her own, I lifted her up and put her into it fully expecting her to immediately jump out. But to my surprise, she stayed there for awhile, probably because the cool water felt good on her paws. Then she drank a bunch of it - probably not the healthiest thing - then literally marched toward the edge while lifting each paw up completely out of the water before hopping out.


Then, Amanda and I decided to see if Georgie could swim. We found out that she could, and when she swam to the edge of the pool and we lifted her up, we saw that her tiny body had shrunk to half its size. A wet rat is definitely bigger than this "dog."


After about two hours at the dog park, we decided to call it a day, and Chloe, Georgie, and I spent the rest of the play date cuddling and sleeping on the couch - with me holding Georgie an arm's length away from Chloe.


So much for a mutually fun play date, but at least Chloe had fun!