Sadie.

My Dog is judging me.

She has a perfectly good warm body downstairs, who will gladly pet her and hug and squeeze her, and pay attention. Instead, she stands, eyes clear, ears at what we call Defcon 2 (raised, but not entirely alert), with a faint noise, between a wheeze and a whine, coming out of her nose every time she breathes. She watches me, unmoving, as I work.

She only does this when I start working on work. If I am sitting, bullshitting at the computer, playing The Settlers: Rise of an Empire, or reading Slate nonstop, she is upstairs, licking herself on my pillows, or downstairs, lounging in the sun. Once I crack open a book and start typing, though, she judges.

You don’t love me. The look says. Something else is more important.

I’ll give her food. I’ll give her water. I’ll give her treats. I’ll set her up on the couch with a wonderfully fluffy Big Dog from Petsmart. I’ll throw a stuffingless raccoon into the other room for her to fetch. I’ll squeak a lion bleeding white polyester from the neck to distract her.

Nothing.

Just the eyes, and the faint noise.

No, it says, I’ll be ok. Don’t mind me. Standing here, dying from lack of affection.  

Brat.

She will, eventually, sometimes, leave. She'll go curl up on her bed, or on the couch, and she'll give a high pitched cry every few minutes, just in case I have forgotten her. 

When I call her to me, she doesn't come. If I try to pick her up to put her on my lap, she backs away a few steps. If I catch her, she jumps off a few seconds after being set up between me and the computer, a painstaking process that involves readjustments of elbows and nails digging into thighs. She'll then stand about two feet from my chair and whine/weep/wheeze.  

My dog. I love her. Who else shows such devotion to my work? She always knows when I am working, and stands guard until I am done. Even if it is fricken annoying.