Tag Archives for dog

A Christmas gift near-miss, or great minds think alike when it comes to pets

It was something out of a sitcom.

Unbeknownst to the other, each of us was plotting to get a surprise pet for Christmas.

I spent the day making googly eyes at kittens at the York County SPCA with all intentions of picking one out to surprise Aaron for Christmas. The plan was to find our kitten, file the paperwork, try to stall and leave the kitten at the SPCA for another couple of days and stash it at a friend’s house until it was close enough to Christmas to surprise Aaron. He’s been talking about wanting a pet, and I figured a cat would be a good place to start.

"Take me home with you, jsprenk!"

“Take me home with you, jsprenk!”

Except I made a rookie mistake.

When I got to the SPCA, I told the worker that I wanted to get a kitten as a gift. And that’s a no-no.

After my flub, I didn’t want to fill out an application for fear they’d mark me with a Scarlet G — a Gifter. So I couldn’t actually visit any of the animals that day.

Still, I went home confident that I was going to knock Christmas out of the park. And I bragged a little bit over dinner, saying that I knew he was going to love my gift.

But then he started to say that he was pretty sure I wanted what he was getting me, but he wanted my input too. And I speculated that we might be considering the same thing. And he said that two of them would be trouble. We’d be in over our heads. And I suggested we get a mediator.

And he texted my pal Kate, whom I’d been sending kitten photos, and she replied to me, and I lunged across the table, and the cat came out of the bag.

He’d been planning to get me a puppy. I’d been planning to get him a kitten.

These two were looking at me with "take me home eyes", too.

These two were looking at me with “take me home eyes”, too.

In the sitcom, we wouldn’t have figured it out. We’d have woken up Christmas morning with a cat in a box and a dog in a box, and they’d leap out and chase each other around the house, probably getting Aaron and me caught in a tangle of Christmas lights together.

In real life, we’re going to pick out a kitten together, which is nice because neither of us has the pressure of being solely responsible for picking The Right One. And there’s no more surprise complicating the logistics of the situation.

And in real life, maybe the SPCA’s no-gifting policy isn’t quite as much of a buzzkill as I thought.

The case of the dog on the roof

So one thing that happened during Friendstoberfeast earned its own post.

There was a dog on a roof.
https://twitter.com/parva_x/status/270288287422353409
https://twitter.com/jsprenk/status/270289844889079808

It wasn’t my roof, or else the whole thing would have been much easier to deal with. Several houses around the corner have attached roofs, and the dog was barking and running across several of the roofs.

A couple of the guys who saw the dog knocked on the doors where the dog might have come from, but nobody answered. Animal control wasn’t open, since it was Sunday. So we called 911, which likely landed us on the police scanner at the YDR newsroom.

I don’t have any idea what happened to the dog. There was a slightly ajar window with a ledge that it could have climbed out of, and then not known how to get back inside.

It wasn’t still up there after the party. I hope it’s OK. PSA: Don’t let your dog on the roof.

Side note: In digging up these tweets, I searched on Twitter for the phrase “dog on a roof.” Shockingly, this isn’t as rare as you’d think. Enjoy here and here (dog on the roof, which gets a little political).