Yellow mixed
Daisy
Load-Bearing
Fifty pounds of yellow dog who is certain she has no claim on this house, and who has unilaterally adopted the loudest animal in it.
What the family says “Aw, Daisy.”
The story
The city shelter had her down as an older dog, which is the phrase they use when nobody’s coming and everybody knows it. Older dogs sit. Puppies move in a weekend; a big quiet yellow dog in the back of a city shelter sits, and sits, and is very good the entire time, which does not help at all.
Nobody knows what came before. There’s no history in her file worth the name.
But she arrived knowing things.
She knew sit. Nobody in this house taught her that. She knew to wait at the door instead of going through it. She was already housebroken, already soft-mouthed, already knew not to take food off a low table even when the whole house was empty and nobody would ever have found out.
Somebody taught her all of that. Somewhere, at some point, there was a life with her in it and a person in it, and that person spent real time on her.
She has never once indicated anything about it. Not a favourite word, not a flinch, not a reaction to a particular sound. Whatever it was, she carries it entirely without comment, and this household will never know.
The few weeks
She didn’t eat much at first. She picked one spot — beside a chair, not under it, close to a wall — and she stayed roughly within a few feet of it for the better part of a month. When people came near her she got up and moved out of the way before she could possibly be asked to.
She was not sad. She was waiting to find out if it was real. Older dogs do this. They’ve had a house before.
The family was kind to her the entire time, and being kind to her is not what fixed it.
What fixed it
There was already a pug in residence.
Franklin took one look at the enormous new arrival — an animal five times his size, capable of ending him structurally — and did what Franklin does, which was to walk directly over and sit down on her.
Not beside her. On her. And not even fully — he reversed up and put only his back end on her ribs, which is somehow more insulting than the whole dog, and then he sat there with his chin up like a man on a bench.
Daisy did not move.
She lay very still and she thought about it for a long moment, and something in her rearranged itself permanently, because here at last was the thing she had been waiting for in this house and it was not kindness and it was not a bed and it was not food.
It was a job.
Somebody needed her to be exactly where she was. Somebody was using her as furniture, which meant somebody had decided she was reliable, which meant she was load-bearing, which meant — and this is the only argument that has ever worked on Daisy — she could not be in the way, because she was holding something up.
She stopped being a guest that afternoon.
She has been his ever since. He has never once thanked her. She has never once required it.
The Duck
Somewhere along the way the family started calling her the Duck.
Nobody decided it. Nobody remembers deciding it. It probably started with the yellow — a big yellow dog, and somebody said duck once, and it stuck the way real nicknames stick, which is to say completely and without anyone’s permission. There is no origin story. Nobody in this house has ever asked why, and nobody has ever explained.
Daisy hedges about everything. She qualifies, she trails off, she leaves herself an exit in every sentence she has ever thought.
She has never once hedged about the Duck. She answers to it instantly, every time, without checking whether she’s allowed to.
What drives her
- The lie she tells herself
- I'm a guest here. This could still turn out not to be mine.
- What she actually wants
- To be needed.
Vitals
- Name
- Daisy. The Duck — nobody decided it, nobody remembers deciding it.
- Species
- Yellow dog, mixed. Female.
- Size
- About 50 lb. The largest animal in the house. Moves like the smallest.
- Acquired
- City animal shelter — already an older dog
- What the family says
- “Aw, Daisy.” Constantly. With enormous affection.
- Signature position
- Lying down, with a pug on her
- Primary drives
- Being needed. Not being in the way.
- Fatal flaw
- Will not take up space for herself
- Redeeming quality
- Will take up any amount of it for him
- Full title, self-appointed
- She’d never.
How she is
Shy — genuinely, not adorably
She’s not coy or delicate about it. She removes herself. She takes the back of the room, the edge of the couch, the far side of the doorway. She will get up and relocate rather than risk being asked to move.
Apologetic on reflex
She apologises for things that are not her fault, things that have not happened, and occasionally things that are actively being done to her.
Maternal — immediately, without invitation
She didn’t apply for the position. She saw a small ridiculous creature with no self-preservation instinct and simply started doing the job. This is not softness. It is authority, and it is the only place she has any.
Physically enormous and behaviourally tiny
She towers over every animal in this house and has never once used it. She could end any conflict in the building instantly, and instead she says sorry and goes around.
Capable of exactly one loud thing
The Bark. Once. One syllable. Instantly effective. Followed by ten minutes of mortification.
Settled, finally — but never quite certain
Years in, she still checks. She still gets up when someone walks past.
The others
Franklin — her son
The defining relationship of this roster. He believes she is furniture, staff and possibly a throne. She believes she is his mother. Neither of them is going to bring it up, and both of them are correct. Being sat on is not something that happens to Daisy — it is her appointment, renewed daily, evidence that she is necessary.
The family
She loves them completely and cannot quite believe them. She’s polite about it, the way you’re polite in someone else’s house. They say “Aw, Daisy” roughly nine times a day — when she flinches at nothing, when she moves out of a path nobody was walking, when she takes the smallest corner of the largest couch. It is the most affectionate sound in that house and she has never once realised it is about her.
Cookie — six feet
Daisy is eight times the cat’s size and gives her a berth of about six feet at all times. Cookie has never had to do anything about this. Daisy simply arrived pre-compliant, which Cookie regards as evidence of good breeding.
Abby Dog
Abby is outgoing where Daisy is shy, and is the only member of this household who ever asks Daisy what she wants — and then waits for the answer, however long it takes.
Millie Dog
Millie doesn’t accept the apology. Not harshly — she just doesn’t engage with it. Daisy says sorry, am I in the way, and Millie says no, and there is nowhere for the apology to go. Over time, and only around Millie, Daisy has started to apologise less. Nobody has noticed. Daisy hasn’t noticed.
Running gags
- “Aw, Daisy.”
- The family’s phrase, roughly nine times a day.
- The Perch
- Franklin putting only his back end on her. Never the whole dog. Always the back end.
- Load-bearing
- Her proudest concept. She is holding something up, therefore she cannot be in the way. Airtight.
- The Bark
- Once. One syllable. Instantly effective. Followed by ten minutes of mortification.
- The Apology
- Delivered for things that are not her fault, including things done to her, including things that haven’t happened yet.
25 things she would say
- I don't mind. He's mine.
- He's not on top of me. He's just sitting.
- Load-bearing.
- He's not spoiled. He's just little.
- I've got him.
- I'm okay back here.
- I wasn't in the way, was I?
- I only say it once.
- Nobody taught me that. I already knew.
- I stayed because somebody needed me to.
- I give the cat six feet. She's never had to ask.
- It's only the back half. That's fine.
- He could have picked anywhere. He picked me.
- I'll move when he's done.
- I didn't ask for a son. I got one anyway.
- Somebody has to know where he is.
- He's a lot. He's still mine.
- Sorry — you go ahead.
- I don't need the whole couch. I need the corner.
- I'd rather be in the room than in the middle of it.
- That's enough. …Sorry.
- I don't raise my voice. I raise it exactly once.
- Fifty pounds of please stop.
- I took a few weeks. I'd take them again.
- I wasn't sure it was mine to have.
