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Untimely doggie kisses

August 3, 2023   ·   0 Comments

By Keith Schell

When we were young, we had mostly cats in our lives. Living out in the country as we did, stray cats would sometimes come to us over the years and we would usually end up taking them in.

But after the cats were gone in the early 1990’s, my parents decided to get a dog. A friend of ours had a dog who had just had a litter of mixed-breed puppies and we adopted one. She was a bright, clean, happy, gentle dog and we loved her every bit as much as she loved us. 

But she had one habit over the years that was as annoying as it was endearing, and while it was not always welcome at the time it happened, you couldn’t help but smile about it in hindsight: 

She loved to give you doggie kisses on the face when you couldn’t defend yourself!

If, for any reason, you were down on the floor doing something, you were in her territory and if she saw you there she would always take the opportunity to trot over to you and shower your face with kisses! 

Usually you had your hands full doing something and couldn’t put it down right away to defend yourself from the onslaught of affection given to you by the dog. 

When you finally got your hands free you would push the dog away and begin to wipe the dog slobber from your face while everybody around you was grinning or laughing. While you certainly weren’t happy about the situation, you really couldn’t get mad at the dog because she was just showing you how much she loved you. And having shown you how much she loved you, she would then walk away happy, tail wagging, looking for her next ‘victim of love’ to ambush. 

One time I was on my hands and knees on the floor in front of the TV, reaching into the back of the video storage section of the TV stand looking for a particular movie. Seeing her opportunity, our dog came up from behind me and started licking me on the face, happy to see me down in her territory. I pushed her away, swearing at her as I did, her ‘ambush of love’ totally unexpected! Happy that she had shown me how much she loved me, she then trotted away, tail wagging, leaving me on the floor covered in dog slobber and our Father sitting on the couch laughing as he watched how the little scene unfolded.

One weekend, I came home very late that night from my job in the city to visit my family. Everyone being in bed when I finally got home, I learned there were no beds available for me to sleep in that night, so the family had left a comfortable fold-out cot made up for me in the living room. I changed into my nightclothes, crawled into the cot, and went to sleep. 

Next morning, as everyone gradually came out to breakfast, I was still asleep on the cot. When our dog saw me sleeping in the living room, she rushed over to the cot, tail wagging, and started licking my face, delighted to see me.

Ever been woke out of a dead sleep by doggie kisses? 

While you really couldn’t get mad at the dog, I was not happy at that particular moment. Still half-asleep I pushed her away, telling her to “Buzz off” (not exactly the words I used) and swearing at her as I did. I covered my head with my blanket to protect myself from further ‘attacks of love’, but she didn’t care. She had happily greeted me, and that was all she cared about. Totally oblivious to my annoyance, she then trotted out to the kitchen, tail wagging, to have breakfast with Dad. Just before I went back to sleep, I heard our Father chuckling out in the kitchen as he said to the dog, “Ya got him, did ya?”       

Our dog has been gone now a very long time and is dearly missed. She was such a good dog. When our family gets together we sometimes reminisce about her and the happy memories her antics brought into our lives. 

And in thinking about our dog these days, what I wouldn’t give to be down on the floor and be ‘ambushed by her love’ just one last time. 

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