With a Dog, Move-In Day Turns Messy

If a dog is part of your family, you understand adventure (and misadventure). If you own a Labrador, you understand the concept of "growing into your paws," waking up to a tongue licking your face and sleeping on your back, spread-eagle to the world.

This column – which will be featured each Tuesday – will recount my experiences and love of life with a yellow Lab named Toby. Each week, Toby and I will find a new place to explore in Hyattsville and the surrounding area and recount it to you. We live in an apartment now, with only small coves and courtyards for Toby to walk and play in. (I recenty let him run in the hallway - shhhh, don't tell my landlord – and what a sight to see! He looked more like a deer hopping through the forest than a dog running.)

And since we still have those big, comic-strip hearts in our eyes when we see each other, I think you'll probably also experience our love. And maybe a belly rub … err …  laugh or two.

For today, let me tell a tale from the past.

After three years of living in a house on Hamilton Street, last month Toby and I moved into an apartment on Belcrest Road. It was a hot day, and my friends and I had carried every last box into the new place. All that was left to move was a giant English Lab.

Toby's never lived in an apartment before, so I wasn't sure how this would go.

And "go" was never a more appropriate word.

I waited until evening to take him outside for his routine potty trip. We went out the door of the apartment buildling and down the elevator. When we came into the lobby, he stopped keeping up with me and a pool of yellow liquid came gushing out.

In walked Sonia Dasgupta (you know, the editor of Riverdale Park-University Park Patch), who pointed out a bathroom with paper towels for me to use to sop up the mess.

Just as I was cleaning up, the other "element" came plopping out of Toby.

My hands were filthy. I'd used up all the paper towels, and Toby wouldn't stop "going."

I tethered him to a portable smoker's outpost just outside the lobby doors, so I could finish cleaning and direct other tenants to walk around the mess. Just then, movers with a mattress and box spring came walking through the front doors and into Toby's mess.

It then became official: I was living my nightmare – until I realized that it could've been worse.

Once the movers made it past me, I saw a yellow Lab standing untethered outside the front doors. The movers had knocked the outpost over, freeing him. Oh, the things that went through my mind. Screeching tires and a yelping dog was the first thing. Life without Toby was the next.

Thankfully, Toby never moved an inch (strange for him) as I ran outside. (Was it really happening in slow motion?)

I grabbed the Lab, found a trash can and hurried upstairs to wash my hands.

And then thanked God the day was over.