My dog recently tried to commit suicide.

I should have seen it coming, what with the steady increase of children around here and the equally steady decrease in his activity level. Apparently, in a moment of rock-bottom desperation, he saw a way out: An oversized bag of chocolates on top of my favorite living room table.

“Come here, big guy. Come closer…,” the confections must’ve called to him. “Eat this and you’ll go to the big field in the sky where Frisbees are thrown 24/7. Where the roads are paved with carrots (my dog’s odd), your bed’s a big comfy couch. Oh, and there are no toddlers.”

It worked. He devoured the whole five-pound bag — foil wrappers and all. I found his big ol’ 80-pound Labrador-Retriever self beached on the living room rug like a furry Orca. A few tale-tell bits of foil lay scattered near him. And the deep scratches in my mahogany table read like lines from a canine suicide note.

The on-call vet suggested I induce vomiting with hydrogen peroxide. So I hauled the pedigreed mutt out back in the 30º weather to commence the life saving. It seems that hydrogen peroxide wasn’t the bubbly Ollie wished to wash his chocolates down — well, actually up — with. The fella has quite an ornery streak, but so do I. And after conjuring up my best crocodile-hunter impression, I body slammed him to the ground and won. (Round one, that is.)

After getting the first tablespoon down his chocolate-coated throat, I waited expectantly for the result. Then waited some more. Nothing. Ding, ding. Time for round two. I circled the deck ominously, giving him my steeliest glare. This time the scene was more like crocodile hunter meets bull rider. But again, my stubborn side kicked in and I persevered. After getting the second tablespoon of peroxide down, I waited again. Nothing. Not even a gag. Maybe I should call the vet and see how long this is supposed to take.

As soon as I opened the door, the hound dashed in and emptied his entire stomach contents on my hand-hooked wool rug that doesn’t react well to liquids. The only saving grace was that the vomit had a lovely chocolate aroma.
Ollie is our first child, if you will. We brought him home at a mere 8 weeks old, barely weaned and cute as anything. He was the runt of the litter and I picked him out specifically because he wouldn’t stop pulling at my shoelaces — a sure sign that he was to be mine. (And hopefully a red flag to you, in case someone ever tries to brainwash you into thinking that an obsessive puppy sounds like a great idea.)

He’s always been a tad on the hyper side. “He’ll calm down when he’s 2,” my husband, Frank, and I kept telling ourselves. And when he was 12, we were saying, “He’ll calm down when he’s 13.”

It’s not that I don’t love the dog. It’s just that, um, well, hmm, he has some rather unnerving habits that on their own might be tolerable, assuming you’re heavily medicated, but seeing as how I’m not — toss squabbling brothers, a toddler and a seemingly permanent case of PMS into the mix and well, God love him, Ollie is always the straw that breaks the mommy’s back.

Like the majority of his kind, Ollie loves water. You can’t keep him out of a pool, pond or stream, but forget about trying to get him to go potty in the rain. And tennis balls? He’s a full-blown addict. His entire existence revolves around scoring his next ball fix. In fact, it doesn’t even have to be a sphere per se; it can be a cup, an octagon from little Emma’s shape sorter, or even a plastic shovel from Alex and Ben’s backyard toy collection. He has an uncanny knack, that was cute the first couple of times, for dropping said items on the ground and pushing them via snout, right underneath the foot of someone simply trying to make it from the living room to the kitchen without twisting an ankle or breaking a neck.

He knows how to open cabinet doors (we have to dogproof more than childproof), and somehow managed to open and stuff his not-so-svelte body into the tiniest of toy chests one day in the quest of a super ball. It was quite a sight, seeing him stuck like that. Reminded me of myself after having my first baby — trying to squeeze into my pre-pregnancy jeans before leaving the hospital — only Ollie managed to get all the way in. I would’ve left him there to learn a lesson, but unfortunately for me, and the neighbors, his earsplitting bark was relentless.

I admit that it’s not his fault. Frank and I take the blame. We did all the first time doggie parent things: Took him to the park to have a social life, trained him to be a Frisbee dog and generally devoted all our spare time to the little scoundrel.

“You know Ollie’s actually going to lose some status and become a dog after the baby’s born,” my mother told me over the phone toward the end of my first pregnancy. I dismissed this with an exaggerated eye roll and another dive into the box of cereal I was snacking on. She’s a cat person, after all. Big, sloppy, shedding beasts are my thing, not hers.

Now – more than a decade and three kids later, I’ve realized the gospel truth. Mothers are always right.

So I’ve decided to try something new in my quest for domestic bliss (okay, actually in my quest to prevent my head from spinning, which tends to scare the children). I’m choosing to focus on Ollie’s redeeming qualities. Here’s what I’ve come up with.

First, he is the darn best security system anyone could hope for (minus the fact that he can’t be disarmed). I have no worries that a prowler will ever enter our home without my knowledge, since nary an acorn hitting the roof or a squirrel on the porch goes without a hardy round of brain-rattling barking.

Second, his dog bowl is always half full. He lives life just knowing that while it looks like I’m really working at the computer, talking on the phone and simultaneously balancing a small human in my lap, if he gives me a solid, meaningful “woof” and runs to the back door, I’ll instantly come to my senses, drop all those silly distractions and take him out for a round of fetch.

And last, but so not least, he’s a love with the kids. Although “No Ollie!” was one of the first phrases uttered by all three of my offspring, he puts up with whatever they dish out. From being ridden like a racehorse to being the pretend dragon in a 5-year-old’s drama, he’s never once snapped at the kids. Which, come to think of it, is more than I can say for myself.