Insidious Takeover

It happened so suddenly I wasn't even aware that it was happening.

But isn't that the way the best takeovers happen? I was reading today about Google-plus and what a great thing it's going to be. I don't know much about it, but apparently it can track you everywhere so that all of your friends know where you are at every minute of the day.

Pardon me, but how is that different from "Big Brother is Watching You"? except that our latter day overlords have learned how to do it with our permission and to make us think that it's all a game and we love it.

Of COURSE I want to let the world know when I'm not at home, when I'm depositing money in my bank, when I am having a good time at a bar somewhere. It's FUN!

Well, I'm not here to cast aspersions on Google-plus, about which, as I said, I know almost nothing.

No, I'm here to talk about my own complicity in my own insidious takeover. How I let it all happen and even seemed to enjoy it.

Meet my overlord:

9 lbs 13-1/2 lbs of pure tyrant. And it's not just me. It's the other big 30 and 40 lbs dogs too! We're all under her tiny paw.

It's been so insidious, I'm not even sure when Polly decided that she was going to take over here. Obviously it was sometime before I uttered those infamous words: "I want to adopt her." Oh she was smart, that little minx. She wrapped me around her little dewclaw and hooked me in. She knew a good thing when she saw it and she wasn't going to let it slip away.

But once she realized that she didn't have to spend every Saturday in a cage while strangers tried to decide if she was something they wanted to bring home, she started molding this into the home she wanted it to be. To whip us all into shape.

Since we got home from China, I haven't gone out all that much so more often than not, I'm home 24/7 and I've been able to see the pattern of Polly's day.

She doesn't wake me up, but she stands on the floor near wherever I happen to be sleeping and starts whining softly. If my eyelids flutter (she hears them, I'm sure), she whines louder. When I decide I'd better get up, as my feet are hitting the floor, she's announcing to the other dogs that 'She's up! She's awake! Come eat!!!" She barks and barks and runs back and forth from the family room to the living room until Sheila and Lizzie come staggering out looking for a cup of coffee.

There is no ignoring Polly from opening of eyes to presenting of the dog food. I've tried, but it's just senseless. She will make my life miserable if I do (occasionally I must go to the bathroom first and she stands outside of the door barking. You can almost see her tapping her paw impatiently. "How DARE you go into the room before you feed me!")

Once breakfast is over, the dogs go outside. They will be outside for about an hour, perhaps and then Polly, for some reason only she knows, starts barking again. She's not barking at anything, just barking. Bark........bark.......bark..... It's not the Lizzie barking at the back fence which is more barkbarkbarkbark, or Sheila's letting the neighborhood know she is up and awake Woof...woof...woof. What happens when the dogs bark is that I bring them in and lock the dog door to avoid the inevitable phone call from Mr. McCoy.

It's almost that Polly wants to be locked in because by the time I get out of my office, she is standing on the patio, with her head cocked to one side checking to see if I am going to make them come in (they have a dog door, but this would involve opening the patio door, making sure they all come in, and then locking the door so they can't get out again.)

So I let them in and the big dogs head for the living room and Polly for my recliner and me to my office. They are now locked in the house. About two hours later, Polly comes into my office and starts whining. She wants to go out. So I let them out and we do it all over again.

If they are out of water, she stands in at my feet and whines.

If the timer on the stove goes off, she stands outside my office door and barks.

When I leave the house the dogs get a treat, but if I leave the house to, say, get the paper or the mail, Polly stands inside incredulous that I actually went out the front door without the involvement of a treat. When I return they also get a treat and I swear she starts barking for it when the car is half a block away. By the time the front door opens she has worked herself into a frenzy and is making whirling dervish circles backing away from me and into the kitchen.

When 5 p.m. rolls around, she starts with the whining, but since I don't feed them until about 7, I ignore her. She tries being pathetic, but I don't feed them until after Jeopardy, but when Jeopardy is over, she leaps up, starts whirling in circles and barking for the other dogs to join her for dinner.

After dinner we do the patio-dog door-bark-locked inside game again and then around 11 p.m. she sits at my feet and whines again, which means I'm supposed to shut down the computer and come join her in the recliner.

I'm very obedient. I have learned to understand several words in dog and I generally get praise for being such a good mistress. If she had thumbs, she might even give me a treat now and then. We are much happier now that Polly has assumed control and keeps us on the straight and narrow.

(Please don't tell Cesar Milan)