Oooh, I'm embarrassed.

Poodleface and I went to see a display of Christmas trees in town, and for the second time, someone snuck up on him and startled him enough that he barked.
I am so embarrassed.
This time instead of an adult creeping toward him at a museum it was a small child who ran two circles around him before leaning over and trying to see his jacket. I probably wouldn't be quite as embarrassed, but only a few minutes before I'd been explaining to an event coordinator that my dog is a service dog and has to be allowed in.
I know this isn't my fault, but I feel like somehow it is.

Can you not do that, please?

There are a lot of little things people do that really bother me, but that I feel I can't mention because they sound so silly. A rather extreme example of this was a woman in one of the college classes I've taken at the local university center.
It was the first day of class and we were all choosing our seats. I went to sit in the back, which is one of the things I try to always do because it makes things easier on Poodleface. If I'm at the back of the room none of my classmates will need to walk by me, which greatly reduces the chance that Poodleface will be tripped over or stepped on, and also makes it easier for everyone in the room to ignore him.
A woman in yoga gear and with long blond hair (I never learned her name) came in and started looking around for a seat. When she saw Poodleface her eyes grew wide and she immediately sat down in the seat in front of me, turned herself backwards, and started watching my dog. I expected her to hold out her hand to him or try to whisper something, and after a minute of this I was beginning to pray she would, so that I could tell her off and get her to turn back around. But she didn't. She was just...staring. The instructor came in and introduced himself and started talking, but she didn't turn back around. She was still staring at my dog! Not moving, just staring, barely blinking, with her mouth open! I had a half-dozen snarky comments I was dying to make, but she hadn't done anything to be besides thoroughly creep me out, so I stayed silent and squirmed uncomfortably. Almost ten minutes into the class the teacher passed out a worksheet to see how much we already knew, and this seemed to break the spell. She turned around, and you could've cleared the leaves off your front lawn with my sigh of relief. But then she finished her worksheet and went back to staring at my dog.
I'd had enough, and I asked her what she was doing. She beamed at me and told me that my dog was amazingly well-behaved, and so cute, and she just loved him, but that I shouldn't worry because she wasn't going to try and touch him. All I could think of to say was, "Can you...not....please?"
She turned back around, but for the rest of the semester she'd turn around and watch my dog whenever she was bored.
Please don't stare at me, I hate it, and if you absolutely have to stare maybe you could close your mouth?!?

Applause for the pleasant security guard

On our vacation we stopped at a mall, and at that mall I bought some wonderful pants and a shirt. The pants were wonderful because they were marked as 'tall' and thus fit my legs without requiring a belt. Our unpleasant little town is too small to stock such things, but this entry really isn't about pants, so I'll get on with it now.

While at the mall I was approached by a security guard who wanted conformation that Poodleface was a service dog. He approached me with a smile and phrased his question politely. I politely responded that yes, he was a service dog, and that I had his license with me if the guard wanted to see it. He assured me that wasn't necessary and told me to have a nice day. And that was it. 

Here is a list of everything the guard did right:

• He quietly approached me instead of flagging me down and making a scene
• Instead of being confrontational he addressed me politely and used a pleasant tone
• He didn't demand to know the type of service dog, type of disability, or anything more than what he was legally allowed to ask
• He didn't attempt to touch or interact with my dog in any way
• He didn't attempt to make conversation about dogs and let me immediately return to shopping
• He treated me like a person instead of a liability to be cleared up

Never have I met a person more reasonable about service dogs than the pleasant security guard. I take my hat off to the pleasant security guard. I thoroughly applaud him, and I wish him well in all his future endeavors. This world needs more pleasant security guards. 

I expand my scientific horizons, Poodleface gets stalked by a tourist

We went to a science museum while on vacation, which I initially thought was going to be a disaster but which turned out alright in the end.
My father and I bought tickets to see a show in the planetarium on the history of spaceflight, and we had a half-hour to kill in the rest of the museum before the show started. The front hall was under construction and very loud, so we escaped to a wing filled with model planets and interactive solar system displays, and I was sitting at one with Poodleface on the floor beside me when he suddenly started to growl. I turned around and shushed him and found myself face-to-face with a very embarrassed-looking woman who was, I thought, ridiculously hunched over. She straightened up and hurried away, and my dad, who had seen the whole thing, explained that she had been very slowly and deliberately creeping up on Poodleface, which he had noticed and felt threatened by since she was acting more like an incompetent predator than one of the normal curious humans he was used to dealing with.
Honestly, you can just come over and talk to me. I won't get offended. You don't need to stalk my dog.
I was feeling really embarrassed and defensive and worried that we would get thrown out because my dog had growled, but nothing happened and we got to see the show in the planetarium. And they had handicapped seating! Some theaters don't, and in those I put Poodleface on my lap and suffer through the show with fifty-two pounds of disgruntled poodle curled up on my legs, which is why I absolutely love it when I get a special seat with lots of room around it and he can just stretch out on the floor.
The show was projected onto the curved ceiling overhead, and the animation was done so that it changed perspective with each shot and made the audience feel like we were hurtling through space. Poodleface watched very intently, occasionally tilting his head or glancing at me to show just how much he didn't understand, but he was polite and well-behaved and very adorable.
After the show we looked at the dinosaur bones and walked through a mock cave and the glowing inside of a plaster volcano, and while we were in the ocean life wing and I was admiring a tank of manta rays (Poodleface didn't understand what they were and has his head sideways again) a woman came bounding over, squealed at Poodleface and held out her arms as though she wanted to hug him, then told me very seriously that I didn't have to worry; she knew all about service dogs and understood that they couldn't be petted or talked to. I wondered aloud to my dad if she thought knowing the rules made her above them when we weren't quite out of earshot, which felt good in the heat of the moment but was really pretty mean of me. Sorry about that.
We went out through the gift shop, where I discovered that astronaut ice cream is manufactured on equipment that also processes peanuts (It takes some of the novelty out of a thing when you realize it's made in a factory and not some top-secret NASA supply room, so I wasn't all that disappointed) and where my dad bought a tube with a spring in it that sounds like an alien ray gun every time it's jostled. Poodleface once again didn't understand, and this time he was a little afraid and stood behind my legs. He warmed up to the tube on the walk back to the camper, which sounded like we were being shot at every step of the way. Fortunately, no one was wearing red.

Hazards of a service dog: running errands with a walking disaster

As much time as I spend with Poodleface, sometimes it's just impossible to keep him from ruining himself. And then I have to go out in public with him. 

• One of my first poodle disasters was when there wasn't enough time to finish his haircut and I had to take him to school with some patches of fur longer than others.
• When I had strep two years ago and was too tired to pay attention to him he stole a tube of grape lip balm off my desk and ate it, turning his face and front paws a shade of purple that wouldn't wash out.
• In an art class I took in high school he lay down on a plate of black paint and spent two weeks looking part dalmatian.
• I was writing myself a note on my hand during class while we watched a movie in the dark. A desk tipped over, Poodleface barked in surprise, and I dyed his muzzle blue when I covered his mouth before the ink had dried. 

Funny story: I'm not really an animal abuser

There used to be a rumor at the high school that I was an animal abuser and that whenever I was alone with Poodleface I beat him. Although we communicate really well, I think there are always going to be times we don't understand each other and make some sort of mistake. While we were attending school I tripped over him once and stepped on his paw twice, and there were several times where he stepped on my foot or walked into my legs. Whenever one of those things happened everyone nearby would start shouting that I was an animal abuser. It was really very annoying; I doubt there's anyone in the world who hasn't tripped on their dog at some point.
I had the flu a few months before I left high school and on my first day back I needed to talk to my science teacher about the test I'd missed. He gave us the period to work, so I decided not to wait until after class and told Poodleface to stay beside my desk while I went up to speak with the teacher. It was something I'd done lots of times; rousing a sleeping poodle and having him walk with me just to ask a question or hand in a work sheet isn't practical, and as long as he can see me he's perfectly willing to stay.
I'd barely said two words to the teacher before I heard nails skittering on linoleum and Poodleface came hurrying up the aisle to me. He looked frightened of something, and as I picked up the leash to reassure him a boy who sits near me started stammering that he'd thought Poodleface wanted to be petted.
He'd thought, he told me as I put my dog back under my desk, that the only reason I wouldn't let anyone pet Poodleface was to me mean to him, so as soon as I left him alone he tried to comfort him because he was probably really sad if I was abusing him and he could use all the love he could get. But Poodleface freaked out because he knows I'm the only one who ever touches him in school and he could clearly see that I was nowhere near him, and when he jumped the boy tried to grab him, and it became embarrassingly clear that I wasn't an animal abuser when Poodleface ran to me for reassurance.
Not that it did anything to stop the rumor, but it's a good lesson in why service dogs shouldn't be petted. Even if you really want to.

Did you read the dead bird?

I'm a vegetarian. Not because of any meat-is-murder train of thought, because my mother is a vegetarian and I was raised on a vegetarian diet. When I was about eight my parents asked me if I wanted to try meat, but we had a hard time finding a restaurant that didn't cook their meat in or close to peanut oil, and when I finally got some it wasn't earth-shatteringly wonderful. I ate hot dogs for a while, but after finding an unidentifiable and very chewy thing in the middle of one I was more than ready to go back to salad. There's usually a small packet of ham in the fridge that my father puts in his omlettes, but apart from that the house is pretty meat-free.
My father went to the store last night after we realized that we'd run out of food without anyone noticing. When he came back I started putting the food away and discovered some fried chicken, which raised a lot of alarm bells because the bag said it was from Wal*Mart and we'd discovered when I was eleven that I couldn't eat chicken from Wal*Mart. Since it had been six years I thought that something might have changed, but I was still cautious enough that I went outside in the dark in my pajamas to where my father was continuing to unload the car, where I asked him if he had "read the dead bird," which is wary vegetarian teenager speak for "did you check to make sure it's safe for me to be in the same room with the chicken?"
He said he had read the dead bird, but when I got more specific and asked if he'd read the dead bird display he realized that he hadn't. Six years ago the chicken itself had been fine, while the display had warned that everything on it had been made next to stuff that was made in peanut oil.
Although I'm usually the one who searches with him, Poodleface was already sniffing around the chicken when my dad got back to the kitchen, so he asked him if there was anything there and he happily indicated. Which impressed my dad, since he normally doesn't give Poodleface the time of day. And yet the dog was willing to search for him.
I came in shortly after that and asked Poodleface to confirm what he'd told my dad, which he did very emphatically, slapping his paw against the bag when my dad asked him if he was sure. "It's here, right here, I've only told you three times!"  Then he got his reward and the chicken was removed from the house.
Have I mentioned that I love that dog?

Part of me is male with four legs, apparently

Before I got one myself, I thought of a service dog as something like a wheelchair or an artificial arm. After I got one I re-evaluated my analogy and decided that they're more like exceedingly well-behaved children who think squirrels are really interesting. I also found out that, legally, they're the same as pacemakers or insulin pumps. From the perspective of a lawyer, Poodleface is an extension of my own body, which is how they justify that I'm allowed to take him everywhere. Not because he's a very special dog, but because he's me. Only furrier. And the wrong gender.
I found that policy a bit oddly worded until I read The Golden Compass and realized that I've technically got a daemon.

I'm dreaming of a white poodle

As previously mentioned, I pretty much live in the middle of nowhere and so have only crossed paths with three other people who have service dogs. One man I passed on the sidewalk. From the design of his dog's harness I guessed that he was blind, and because I was too shy to say anything to him (and, really, what would I say? "Hi there, I've also got a service dog! We should be friends!"?) he probably doesn't know I exist.
The second woman I met outside my friend's apartment when her dog ran up to me and began to bark at Poodleface before I could get inside. She caught the dog and clipped it back onto her leash and told me she was  sorry, her dog is usually a lot better behaved and it's actually a registered seizure alert dog but it knows it's not on duty now. I pointed out Poodleface's jacket and we had about a minute of service dog-related conversation before I had to go up and meet my friend. Since then I've seen her from a distance going into a store my father and I were driving past, but we haven't had another chance to talk.
The third woman I met in the candy aisle of WalGreens, and she and her psychotic dog nearly got Poodleface and I thrown out of the store. I was sitting on the floor, minding my own business and reading the ingredients list of a new kind of candy I wanted to try, when I heard growling. I looked up and saw that Poodleface was shifting from foot to foot, looking uncertain but remaining polite as a brown dog in a bright orange vest growled nastily at him. On the other end of the leash was an older woman in a flowery dress, who strangely didn't seem to care that her dog was opening both of us to possible legal action. The general public doesn't actually like it when service dogs threaten to brawl in aisle five, you see.
I dropped the candy and got to my feet, positioning the leash in my hands so that I was ensured complete control over my dog, although at the moment he wasn't actually doing anything besides shuffling and making uncertain little woofs. I asked the woman if we should maybe go to different aisles, and she smiled at me and said, "They need to learn."
Yeah, that's great, lady, your dog definitely needs to learn, so maybe you should, I dunno, teach it something? She had it on an extendable leash and was letting it have as much slack as it wanted, hadn't positioned her arm so that she would be able to pull against it if it decided to lunge, and it wasn't even wearing any kind of prong or choke collar. Not that a service dog should need one for everyday use, but they're good insurance in case something unexpected happens, like if someone decides they want to lure your dog over with a steak, or if you're face-to-face with a very irresponsible service dog owner who may or may not be about to let her dog attack your dog. Especially if you're a teenage girl and said dog is half your body weight. You can see how they would come in handy.
I started to back away, and the dog picked that moment to lunge. Poodleface started to jump toward it, and I can't really blame him; it was clearly challenging him, but, since he was wearing his prong collar (hint hint) as soon as I started moving backwards he gave up and came with me. We got to the end of the aisle, at which point the manager came hurrying over and told me to take my dog outside. I showed him Poodleface's service dog license and explained that my dog hadn't been the aggressor. He seemed a little upset about that, but he couldn't legally make either of us leave the store, so he just ordered me to stay away from the old lady, which I did, but whenever her dog caught a glimpse of me on the other end of an aisle it would start to growl again. She never seemed bothered by it and just kept smiling, so I left the store as quickly as I could and never got a chance to really talk to her.
In short, I don't know anyone else with a service dog with whom I can sit down and chat. If I thought there were enough people I'd probably try to start a support group, but this town is so small that, given two to three hours and some cool weather, I can actually walk from one end to the other. So I don't have anyone I can talk things over with and I have no idea if my experiences are common or unique, but I'm curious and I'd like to know. The thing I'd most like to talk about is my dreams.
Poodleface shows up in my dreams.
For almost two years after I got him I'd go to sleep and forget he existed, but one night, when I believe I was dreaming about jogging across a wavering foot bridge that sank abruptly into the water and necessitated me to jump, there he was beside me. A joyous white poodle leaping into the air, connected to me by our familiar leash; exactly six feet of leather that used to be red but has been worn to a supple dark brown by almost constant use.
The next night I was wandering around a beautiful museum that seemed to be part construction zone, and as I was crawling beneath scaffolding and lying on my back on a mosaic marble floor to see the paintings on the domed ceiling, Poodleface was right there beside me. I remember, I even decided to take the stairs rather than climb out a window and down a ladder because I knew he wouldn't be able to follow me.
For the past year he's been in almost all my dreams. He came with me up the stairs of the bus when the police chased and arrested me in the middle of the desert, I threw his leash away so that he wouldn't fall with me when I lost my footing on a narrow bridge, and I took him out into the river in a canoe, and then under the surface of the dark water and into a secret passage to explore with me. I've had dreams where he guided me, dreams where I lost him and panicked, dreams where he could speak and where I could send him on errands. He died once in my dreams, drowning in a swimming pool when I selfishly left him alone, and I cried myself awake and then called him over so I could hug him.
He twitches in his sleep and whimpers and snuffles, and I wonder if I'm in his dreams as often as he's in mine.
I have no idea if anyone else dreams about their service dog, and I'm really curious but have no idea who to ask. It's not like there's a manual for this kind of thing. (Which, come to think of it, there really should be. )
Maybe someone who's reading this could tell me?

Lovely, Poodleface :/

I was sitting in a cramped waiting room the other day, waiting to take the first part of the GED test along with seven other people who I didn't know. Sensing how tense we all were, Poodleface was on his best behavior. He searched my chair, sat where I indicated, and, still polite and with absolutely no change in expression, ripped an impressively squeaky fart.
The situation could have become paralyzingly awkward, but it actually did just the opposite. The laughter broke the ice and we were able to relax and start talking before we were called in to test. It reminded me of another reason I'd left school, (yes, another one) that a dog fart in high school was a good excuse to toss insults at the handler.
Seriously, if you have or are going to get a service dog, never go near a teenage boy. Just don't.

Poodleface once threw up in English. I'm not sure what happened, since up until then I'd only ever seen him throw up after an all-day car ride or after he tried to swallow a treat without chewing it. But it happened, and the teacher didn't want to call the janitor. She acted like I'd said something horrible when I asked her to, like I was trying to force my responsibilities onto someone else. She told me to get some paper towels from the bathroom and clean it up myself, but anyone who's ever had a dog knows that you can't get dog vomit out of carpet using only a paper towel. There's a stain there to this day, which there probably wouldn't be if she'd contacted the man the school pays to clean instead of making a sixteen-year-old do it herself like it was some kind of punishment.

Poodleface was once accused of sexual harassment. And no, he didn't climb onto anyone's leg. One day in math class he decided that he was tired of lying on his side and wanted to lie on his back, so he rolled over. And then the girl sitting in front of me began screaming that he was flashing her.
Poodleface is a dog. He walks around wearing nothing but a collar and a vest. The entire world can, at any time, see his boy parts, but it doesn't matter, because he's a dog. According to this girl's logic the squirrel outside my window needs to be arrested for indecent exposure.

Poodleface was once framed for a crime. There's a boy in my town who I do not get along with. At all. Our feud goes back to seventh grade. I'll refer to him in this post as "Hewitt."
Hewitt, budding psychopath that he is, one day had the brilliant idea that he could probably get me in a lot of trouble if he convinced everyone that Poodleface had taken a dump somewhere in the school. So he procured some dog crap and planted it in the Junior-Senior lounge, and then he made a big deal about pointing to it and exclaiming about it and apparently got impatient after a few minutes of this and started wondering just where the hell Chuck's forever girl was and why she wasn't tearfully denying everything to a stern-faced teacher. So Hewitt, incompetent budding psychopath that he is, went looking for me and found me eating lunch in the general cafeteria, which I always do, never having set foot in the Junior-Senior lounge all year, which he would have known if he'd done some reconnaissance first. Our conversation went like this:
Hewitt: "Hey, ChuckForeverGirl. You're in trouble."
Me: "What? Oh, it's you. Get lost."
Hewitt: "Chuck shit in the lounge! You're going to get suspended."
Me: "Chuck? He's under the table. What are you talking about?"
Hewitt: "There's dog shit in the lounge. Guess you should have cleaned up after him!"
Me: "I haven't been in the lounge all day!"
Hewitt: "There's dog shit! I'll show you, come on!"
Me: "What? What did you do to the door? Is something going to fall on me?"
Hewitt: "Nothing's going to fall on you! Come on, I swear there's really dog shit!"
Just a note to all you budding psychopaths out there; it's probably a good idea to let the authorities confront your intended victim. Doing it yourself pretty much gives the whole thing away.
Hewitt: "See? See the dog shit?"
Me: "Oh, come on! That's from a freaking chihuahua!"
Then I went to the principal and sent Hewitt up the river.

Poodleface occasionally farted, followed immediately by that gleeful "Oooh!" sound that adolescent males make when they've found something new to be vulgar about.

Poodleface sometimes needed to go outside and use the grass after lunch, and the school bullies quickly learned that it's really, really fun to insult someone while they're down on the ground bagging up dog shit.

Poodleface sometimes licked his unmentionables during class. It's great that he's responsible about his personal hygiene, but I really wish he wouldn't do it in public.

Where was I again?

Ever since I got Poodleface the world has had a tendency to get too complicated very, very quickly.
Let me explain: when you're in the middle of a large group of people, for example, you have a lot of things to worry about. Namely the location of your elbows and feet to ensure that you don't step on anyone. If you're like me, you're probably also trying not to brush against anyone or to let them brush against you, and you may or may not be attempting to navigate with a large purse, depending on where you keep your EpiPens. It's a lot to think about. Now, imagine yourself in the same situation, only you're steering a dog. You and the dog are walking close together because of the crowds, and occasionally you'll need to take a rather awkwardly-placed step to avoid treading on the dog. You'll also need to keep watch for any small children (or adults) who want to touch the dog, while still navigating the crowd, trying not to be touched and not to hit anyone with your purse.
Someone you know from school comes up to you and wants to talk. You're discussing the new headband you're wearing when you see, out of the corner of your eye, an unattended child running gleefully toward your dog. In your world, your friend no longer exists. You need to deal with the child, and if your friend is saying anything to you you're not hearing it. There are too many variables, too many balls in the air, and you've chosen to drop everything that doesn't matter and pick it up again later.
I'd seen the same thing happen to mothers with several children to wrangle, but I'd never realized it would happen to me. I didn't realize a lot of things.

Like that Poodleface talks in his sleep. It's night, I'm typing this in bed, and this is the third time I've talked him awake after he started whimpering. I really hope he catches that squirrel.