Top Dog

My roommate Morgan got a puppy. I’ve been amusing myself all week by pretending to be a Sears pet portrait photographer when I should be editing a poetry lecture.

Here she is flying (and loving it!) Her name is Guadalupe. I call her Lupe, after the maid on Arrested Development, hoping she’ll clean instead of pee in corners.

I thought this picture was just about the cutest thing imaginable:

She’s so adorable you want to put her on top of a Christmas tree (which she would love!) and coo “Who’s a widdle star? Who’s a widdle star?” But after I sent it to Dan, I was surprised at not receiving BF Awwwws (preferably with lots of emoticons) alongside some cheesy comment about him wanting to get his paws on ME. Instead, he emailed photos of another white fluff ball. It turns out Dan’s friend Chris just got a doppelganger dog, which happened to be over at his apartment.

Dan was totally trying to one-up me with a puppy named Monday. One-pup me, if you will.

OK, that’s pretty cute, I agree, but I countered with a winsome face lick:

A pose Dan then unceremoniously copied in a lame comeback attempt (though I admit the locket ID tag does add an Orphan Annie element):

But I was like, Whatever dude. MY puppy can look head-on, unflinchingly, into the camera:

And then Dan was like Smack down! Here Monday and I are, reenacting Ekaterina Alexandrovna Shcherbatskaya’s heartless rejection of Kostya in Anna Karenina:

Which doesn’t even look convincing. That puppy has no training, unlike Lupe, who can do Hamlet:

It wasn’t necessary to explain to Dan “how” exactly this was doing Hamlet. He tried one last time with a full-body shot of Monday, who was worn out from competing:

As you can clearly see from the diminished level of cuddle, I needn’t acknowledge that with a response.

We’re doing butterflies next. What’ya got, Dan?