The Mothering Instinct

Zoe went to the vet this morning to be spayed.

I know. Poor little kid.

I also happened to have lunch with my mom today, and on my way there, I passed the clinic. I had a burning desire to barge in there and rescue my little stinker. Not because I didn't want her to be spayed, but because I'm a woman. And I have a mothering instinct that attaches itself to anything that needs to be taken care of. For example, Zoe. I knew my puppy was probably scared out of her wits and lonely. Cue mothering instinct. It took some white knuckled hands on the steering wheel to keep me from flying across lanes of traffic and jumping the curb.

We picked her up this afternoon and we thought we could hear her yelping in the backroom. Cue the mothering instinct. It felt like my heart was being rung out by a hand operated washing machine. Minus the strange woman wearing what can only be assumed are old drapes. 

Yeah. One of those. It wasn't pretty, let me tell ya. I wanted to scoop up my puppy and run home. What would I do once I was there? I didn't plan that far ahead. I just saw a need! Give me a break, people!

We got Zoe home and it nearly broke my heart to put that loopy, limp little thing in her kennel all alone. Especially because whenever Chuck or I went in to check on her, she would be looking up at us with big puppy-dog eyes. It didn't help that the huge white collar on her noggin didn't look one bit comfortable!

Chuck left for work and I popped in a movie in the room. Zoe is a cuddle bug. She loves to be wherever Chuck is when he's home, and she's practically attached to my hip whenever she and I together (which is, let's face it, pretty much all day, every day). So, you can probably imagine, she didn't love the idea of staying in her kennel while I was on the bed. No, sir. She would whine and whimper and accidentally smack her collar into the side of the kennel until I would go and sit by her. Then she would just look at me, and then hang her head down as if the collar was just too heavy for her to hold up any longer.

I would return to the bed, and she would start all over again. Cue the mothering instinct, my friends. She was on the bed and laying on top of me in no time. I later went in to the kitchen to grab a bite to eat and returned a minute later to check on her. She was, of course, laying on my pillow. I guess she figures that if she can't get the real thing, that will have to do.

Cute little stink bug!

So, here I sit, anchored to the bed because my puppy is like my kid. And every time she has whimpered during the writing of this beaut, I've taken the time to love her and pet her until she falls asleep again. Because I'm weird. And because I can't shake this little thing we like to call...

Yes, you guessed it...

The mothering instinct.