D-Day.

The poor old Aardvark has taken a back seat the last couple of weeks; I feel like a neglectful parent. A neglectful parent who has left her (aardvark) child in a play pen with a box of cereal and the newspaper and gone out dancing. And the reason for this neglect? Birthday dog!

My son, his name is Seth, turned thirteen on the weekend. Pretty much since Seth could speak, he has been haranging me to let him have a dog. Between the ages of about four and six, he would have happily exchanged me for the dog, such was his enthusiasm and intense drive to join the dog owning universe. Having had dogs in my before-child life, I never flagged in my stoic refusal to fulfill the dog fantasy. I know what dogs are like. And I know what four year olds are like. And a clever dog will have a four year old trained into a treat-sneaking, bed-sleeping, your-mum-will-never-know lacky in about five minutes flat.  So it was no to dogs.

But then, a few weeks ago, I realised it was time. Time to stop resisting because the thirteen year old wants to be the boss of the dog. The thirteen year old has been on the receiving end of repetitive instructions his whole life and is only too happy to find someone to share this burdensome position, even if it's his dog. And the thirteen year old can take the dog for a walk unassisted. And here's the clincher, the thirteen year old can pick up poop. So, finally, it was yes to a dog.

I spent a week researching dog rescue sites and talking to crazy dog rescuing ladies, (no, really, I don't want the rottweiler with anger management issues even if he is a 'lovely boy') and finally found what I was looking for. And so she became, the birthday dog! I wanted to call her Bertha in honour of her exalted role but the men of the household wouldn't go for it. She was a secret birthday surprise, which required a fairly high degree of subterfuge, particularly when we had to build gates and fences before her arrival. We used the chicken smokescreen to great effect -

Seth: 'Is that a gate? Are we getting a dog?'
Me: 'Nah, you know we can't have a dog, we're gonna get chickens, awesome huh?
Seth: 'Yeah. Chickens. Awesome.'

On the day, when Seth realised that he was being gifted a dog, the first thing he said was an approximation of 'oh-my-god-oh-my-god-oh-my-god-I-love-you-guys-oh-my-god-oh-my-god-I-love-you-it's-not-chickens'. 

So now we are a three human, one dog household. And it is really great. And Seth is beyond thrilled. And I am back writing and will pick up the camera this weekend as we settle in to a new kind of normal. Normal with dog. It's all poop bags and liver treats now kids.