“But why is it so HIGH?”

As I was taking a shower the other morning, Olive saunters into the bathroom. As a pup, she used to lie down on the rug and oh-so-patiently wait for me to finish before bolting out the door. She no longer lies down or waits patiently. She sits like a Buckingham Palace Guard on the napkin-sized throw rug in front of the sink and doesn’t move a muscle. She sends me a single thought telekinetically over and over and over. “ARE YOU DONE YET? ARE YOU DONE YET? ARE YOU DONE YET?” The other morning was different. I both sense and hear energetic activity that feels and sounds a bit frantic. I peek out from behind the shower curtain and there is Olive standing there staring fixedly at the brand new ceiling light. She twirls around and looks at it from different angles, never once taking her eyes off it. All of a sudden she leaps up toward the light. ‘OLIVE WHAT THE HOLY HELL ARE YOU DOING?” I figure she must be chasing a fly or something so I go back to my shower. Later that same day I’m sitting on the toilet and Olive bursts in, looks up at the ceiling light and just stares at it like it’s a giant Reese’s Cup. “Oh my God,” I say aloud. “You know the light is new.” Nothing gets past a weimaraner. Nothing. This behavior of hers continues unabated for the next couple of days. There’s something else at play here. The new fixture is pretty much the same but instead of having a brass ring and “nipple” keeping the glass dome in place, it’s bronze. Maybe she thinks the “nipple” is a big bug. I tell this story to some friends and show them a picture of the new fixture. Susan says “Well, from below maybe it looks like a giant eyeball to her.” “You’re right, it is kind of creepy when you look at it like that.” And this morning, the truth dawned on me. I’ve mentioned before that Olive was one of a litter of 11 and female dogs have 10 nipples. And I think that Olive didn’t get enough, so she is always searching for the “eternal nipple.” Inadvertently, I have given her the eternal nipple. Except it’s affixed to the ceiling about eight feet above her.