Poetry

YOU KNOW YOU'VE BEEN DOING RESCUE TOO LONG WHEN:

You have a mental list of people you'd like to spay or neuter.

You stopped at a house with a "Free Puppies" sign in the yard to have an Educational "Chat," and your kids had to post your bail.

Running out of paper towels is a household crisis.

You not only know all the characteristics of a good "stool," you discuss them at dinner.

Your checks have messages on them like "Subtract Two Testicles For Every Four Feet."

You have a bumper sticker that reads "My Dachshund Is Smarter Than Your Graduate Student."

You secretly wonder about such things as how animals can manage without wiping.

You pray they will someday manufacture Teflon furniture.

You have phone calls forwarded to PetsMart.

You absentmindedly pat people on the head or scratch them behind their ears.

Given the choice of having your teeth cleaned or their teeth cleaned, they get their teeth cleaned.

You not only allow pets on the couch, guests have to sit on the floor because the dog has "territorial issues."

Your spouse missed the final game of the World Series because the cat wanted to watch his favorite video, "Birds of North America."

Anytime the animal appears lethargic, you go on-line and investigate vetmed websites, pose questions to your address book and on e-lists, and by the time you digest all the information and field the correspondence, the animal has torn out the window screens, masticated a couch cushion and left something disgusting in your favorite pair of shoes.

Your chatroom handle is "Queen of Spayeds."

You and your vet are on a first name basis and he genuflects when you enter the waiting room. His daughter at Harvard refers to you as "Auntie."

You needed a prescription to recover from "Old Yeller."

You've forwarded more warnings about the dangers of chocolate, onions and mistletoe than the National Center for Disease Control has issued about anthrax and smallpox.

You wear white year 'round, not because you are flaunting a fashion law or belong to a religious sect but because you have a Dalmatian, Great Pyrenees, Samoyed or white Persian at home.

The world would never guess from your "dog or kittyspeak" posts to e- lists that in reality you are chairman of the IBM corporation.

By the time you investigate different flea control products, their advantages and potential risks, natural versus chemical methods, and study the life cycle of the flea, any fleas have died of old age.

You tell your children to "heel!" in a grocery store.

For relaxation, you went mall hopping with your girlfriends. Your eyes glazed over when you saw a sign in front of a pet shop, "20% Off All Puppies & Kittens," and you slapped three security guards before they got you safely contained in the manager's office.