Being a BarkPost writer is a real treat for a number of reasons, the best one being the office pups.
Not only do I get to work with a bunch of great dogs, I can bring my own pal, Ricky, the three-legged Chihuahua, to work with me.
But recently, Ricky has been a little distracting. Not because he’s too needy or playful. For some reason, Ricky keeps disappearing.
That means I have to stop working and go find him. Our office is located on one of several floors in a building in Manhattan, and Ricky has turned up in the stairwells, the security office, you name it.
The building superintendent brought Ricky back to me on one occasion—but the super’s kind of used to our crazy dog lady lifestyle.
Ricky’s officially the reason we find these notes on certain exits:
More often than not, though, Ricky ends up on the 2nd floor of the building in the pharmacy.
The pharmacy staff are real sports about it when they find Ricky digging into what’s apparently his favorite potted plant in the world.
And they always bring him right back to me. But I don’t know how he gets down there in the first place. There’s no way for Ricky to get into the pharmacy without using the elevator.
Given his short stature, I doubt Ricky managed to push the buttons all on his own. Did someone actually watch this three-legged Chihuahua get on and off the elevator and take it as normal doggie behavior?
After a few Ricky disappearances, I realized that I only had myself to blame. As busy as we get in the pawffice, we always take the time to make sure the dogs come first.
Maybe I slipped a little. Maybe I ignored Ricky too much and he began to go out in search of a more consistent source of ruv. It’s possible he was even doing it just to get my attention.
Either way, I couldn’t afford to have him exploring our building anymore. There were too many scary possibilities, like what if he got nabbed by a stranger or somehow made it out of the building.
I’m happy to say that Ricky’s disappearances have stopped, thanks to the vigilance of all my wonderful coworkers and lots and lots of obedience training when we go home. I started reinforcing the basics, like sit, stay, come. I also start each work day with a quick game of fetch, and then we have another game around lunch. Basically, I started reminding him how fun and rewarding it is to be around me.
I can’t tell Ricky “I’m sorry” for ignoring him in the past, but I can show him how much I love him now, and that’s managed to keep him on the BarkPost floor where he belongs.
