Yeah, the dog's crazy but he's hers

Published Feb. 25, 2008

I'm afraid my friend's dog is going to kill her.
I don't mean bite-and-maul kill her.
I mean drive-her-crazy, deprive-her-of-sleep kill her.
He's a Jack Russell terrier, and although he's 12 years old, he's spry as a pup.
When we go over to visit, the dog greets us as we walk through the back door. He barks, spins around in a circle, barks again and then takes off for the living room, presumably to let my friend know she has company - as if she hasn't figured it out yet.
The drill is always the same. As we walk into the living room, my friend walks toward the door and puts the barking dog on a leash outside.
She shuts the door and invites us to sit down.
But before we hit the sofa cushions, the dog starts barking again. My friend gets up and lets him back inside.
He's almost as excited to see us this time as he was when we first walked through the door. He races around, jumping up on each lap to (try to) lick our faces.
My friend sits down on the floor, picks up a chew toy and calls the dog. He comes running over and she heaves the toy toward the kitchen. The dog chases it.
He brings it back to her.
You would think this would be a distraction, but my friend carries on a conversation as if there wasn't even a dog in the room let alone this one.
"Know how many times this dog got me up last night?" she asks as she heaves the chew toy down the hallway toward the kitchen.
"Four. Four times," she says, not waiting for us to answer.
"He won't let me sleep. He whines until I get up and let him out and then as soon as I get back in bed, he starts barking to come back in," she says as she heaves the toy again.
"Tomorrow he's going out in the back when I go to work. It's not supposed to be so cold," she says as she lets the chew toy fly again.
She sometimes leaves the dog in the fenced backyard, where he has a dog house, hoping he will spend the day running around like a lunatic and tire himself out so he will sleep at night - and then she can, too.
Sometimes it works.
When it does, he only gets her up twice in the night instead of four times.
The University of Minnesota recently did a study and found that a person who owns a cat is 40 percent less likely to die of a stroke or heart attack than a person who owns a dog or has no pet at all.
I consider telling that to my friend whose dog is going to give her a stroke - never mind not prevent one.
But first I have to figure out how to do that. She really does love that dog - despite everything. And I don't want her to think I don't like him. He really is sweet - when he's sleeping.
"Know how long these dogs live?" she asks, breaking my train of thought.
She pulls the toy back and forth to get it out of the dog's mouth.
"Seventeen years," she says as the dog lets go so unexpectedly that she has to catch herself to keep from falling backwards.
"That means I have five more years of this," she says as she whips the toy toward the kitchen like a knife-thrower.
"Then," she says, "I'm going to get a cat."