The Intervention

My husband Robert and I recently hold an intervention with one of my best friends.  For those of you who have never done so, staging an intervention for a family member or friend in need is hard.  It’s emotional, time consuming and worrisome.  One never knows how somebody will react to the fact that you feel the need to sit them down and discuss a concerning habit of theirs with them.

First, Robert and I built a fire to reassure my friend that this is a warm and loving environment.  We then assumed our most non-threatening poses.  See how kind and understanding we look?  Yup, we rock this compassion stuff.

We then invited Chief to join us.  Oh!  Didn’t I mention this intervention was for my dog?  Sorry.  Yup, this shit just GOT REAL, baby!

Anyway.

A little warily at first, Chief made himself comfortable.

In order to ease the harshness over what he was about to hear, I started off gently and complimented him on some of his amazing abilities, unique quirks and overall genius.

I told him about how smart he is and reminded him that I was secretly proud for having to spend $250 on a new door handle because he was able to open the old one and get out the front door.  I reminded him that he is indeed, a very advanced and superior animal.  I told him that he’s the best dog in the world.

And then he got really comfortable.  If there is a background soundtrack to life in my house, it’s the sound he’s making pictured below.  All.  The.  Time.  I’ll pause for a minute to let your brain cue the music for you.  Slurp.

The conversation went about like this.

“Remember the day that the disgusting, dirty, anti-social gigantor cat was hissing at you from underneath a car?  Did you listen to the hisses and back away?  No.  No, you did not.  And I had to yank an embedded severed cat claw from your tender nose.”

“Oh!  How about the time that you went after the cat in the bushes, while on your leash?  And you got all tangled up in there, the cat scratched the shit out of your ear and laughed at your sorry ass while I endured my own scratch injuries from having to untangle your leash?  Was that fun?  No! No, it was not.”

I then proceeded to remind him about the time that he was teasing a cat at the playground and it jumped on his head and scratched the daylights out of him.  He was helpless to do anything.  We had to intervene and save him.  I reminded him that he’s a 90-pound big dog and that the cat was maybe eight pounds.  But guess who won that fight?  Not my dog.

We finally wrapped it up by telling him this:  “So the purpose of today’s friendly little chat is this.  STAY AWAY FROM THE CATS.  All of them.  They’re not good for you and frankly they make you look incredibly stupid.  Every single time.  Honestly, we’d send you to cat rehab but they’re pretty rare and I already spent our extra money on a box of wine.  You’ll have to work on breaking this unhealthy cat obsession on your own.”

“One more thing.  I think eating grass to throw up on purpose is a form of bulimia.  I’d look into that.  It’s not healthy and it’s plain gross.  Thanks!  Love you!”

“Oh, and STOP peeing on the carpets!”

Since I wrote this 2-1/2 years ago, Chief did pass on. You can read about that here if you want the sad doggie story.

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