Maddie and My Parents

Although Maddie was housebroken fairly quickly in my apartment, for some reason she felt entitled to poop inside at my parents’ house for the first year or so. Back in these early years, Maddie would also show remorse, or at least awareness, over doing something she wasn’t supposed to do. She’d skulk around behind furniture, hide under the bed, not come out to greet you when you came home.



My parents’ dog at that time, George, could do no wrong. If something was amiss, Maddie was always presumed guilty. Most likely she was the culprit, but I’m pretty sure she took the rap for at least a few of his transgressions.

Maddie was forever finding her way into George’s dish or bag of food despite my parents’ efforts at vigilance. When I called to arrange a visit with Maddie, they’d say, “We’ll put the dog food up.” Maddie would make a beeline for George’s food the instant she got in their house. A time or two she got into the bag when no one was around. We would return to find her lying on her side, the skin so taut over her stomach you could feel the individual nuggets of food, apparently unchewed.


When Lena was a baby, my mom often came over when minor illnesses kept Lena home from day care. Inevitably, Madeline would get the better of mom at some point during the day. When I got home, after a quick exchange about Lena, I’d ask how the day went with Maddie.

“That scoot!” mom would say with a wry smile, and confess that Madeline had managed to get her morning toast, or part of her lunch, or something out of her purse. The story usually started with “I just stepped away for one moment…”

Eventually mom got a little defensive about being outsmarted by the dog, or at least about being teased because of it. She stopped telling me about Maddie’s conquests. “I’m not saying,” was her new answer to my query. Or “All I’m saying is ‘one hamburger.’ ”