I am insane.

Today, I found a package of sliced Swiss cheese in the freezer. I have been looking for those cheese slices for about a week now. It’s the first sign of Alzheimer’s, you know; when you start putting things away in the wrong places. Like keys in the sugar bowl or milk in the cupboard (or cheese in the freezer...).

I’ve been trying to prevent it from happening, this creeping insanity, but it’s relentless. It sneaks up on you and tests you out to see how far you can be pushed. It’s like a guest that never goes home. It comes for a visit but moves into the vacant spaces that once were capable of decoding Algebra, learning Latin, making Banana Bread from scratch, remembering piano recitals, and inventing complex games for the eight-year old basketball team.

To be fair, the extent to which I feel insane has been exacerbated by the adoption of a puppy, named Poppy, from a shelter in St. Louis two weeks ago. I have joined the ranks of millions of unwitting parents who capitulate to their daughter’s relentless pleading for a dog. It started when she was a baby; my daughter’s first word was DOG. Awww, that’s so cute, we said. We are now 10 years into what appears, for all intents and purposes, to be an obsessive-compulsive disorder with regard to this mammal.

Over the years, she has collected stuffed dogs, thoughtfully and carefully naming every one of them based on the colour of the toy or the town where she got it. She has dog pictures taped to her walls. She prints pictures of dogs from web-sites. She changes my screen saver to a different dog every week. She takes out library books on raising the little monsters. Okay, okay, you can have a dog! Oh no, did I say that, or did I just think it....?

Guess what? You can give your kid a dog, but it’s the mom who does all the work. Oh sorry, you knew that already. So did I. But, did it stop me? Oh no. I took one look at that cute little face attached to her clumsy little seven-pound wrinkly body and fell in love. Poppy is a mix of several dogs, we think, although we can’t figure out more than what is known: mother was a lab and hound mix. The rest is a mystery, but the wrinkles, black nose and worried eyes would point to a possible beagle.

Oh listen to me, would you? I am insane. For the first week, she cried going into her crate and she cried half way through the night. Don’t you find it amazing that only one person could hear her – me! So, there I was, in my pyjamas at two and three in the morning, trying to persuade her to go potty outside. She had no concept of time, so after doing her business, she’d bite my slippers and wag her tail, inviting me to play. Groan.

I was feeling pretty smug – a sure sign that something will go wrong – after a few days of “potty training” because I was able to get her outside in time for nearly every pee and poop. Then, St. Louis got hit with a whopper of a thunderstorm. It was the kind that just sits there, booming away overhead for hours, with every thunder clap being answered nearly simultaneously by a flash of blue-streaked lightening. Poppy was terrified and would not go outside. I kept trying but, at a certain point, you know when you’ve met your match. That day, mine was Mother Nature, and she was having a good laugh at my expense!

So now the weather is a bit fairer and we’re settling into a bit of a routine, this dog and me. There are still several things I can’t find, but I’m blaming that on Alz-hounders ... you know the dementia you get after several sleepless nights and long hours playing with and training a baby hound! Wish me luck!

Woof.