My Life, My Blog

Why I am not a dog person

Dogs.

I wish I could say I am a dog person, but I am not. I have never had a dog that anyone would consider “normal.” My first dog was obtained by my family when she adopted us. I was seventeen, and her name was Mindy. We also had a cat and a parakeet named Mindy, and a chicken we were thinking about naming Mindy, but that is another story altogether.

Mindy was sweet, smart and adorable. She lived until I was twenty five, and I miss her to this day. When I got married a short time later, got divorced, and became a single mother, I decided a dog would be the answer to my lonely prayers. I guess vet bills and hairballs from two psychotic cats weren’t enough to tell me I needed no more “companionship.”

My cousin Mel had an English Springer Spaniel that had just given birth to seven puppies that looked suspiciously like the large chocolate lab next door. I picked the one with no white on her, the one that howled at passing sirens, and the one that seemed skittish.

NEVER get a puppy that seems shy… or skittish… or psychotic. Word to the wise. My darling Chocolate, as my kids named her, became a member of our dysfunctional family, and she seemed as dysfunctional as the rest of us. She would yelp and tremble if I had her anywhere but tucked in my shirt. On her first official vet check up, the vet cleared her throat and Chocolate screamed out a howl that made my hair stand on end. She gnawed on everything, pulled at the leash, was obsessed with humping her brother (long story) and was impossible to train. Bathroom or trick etiquette eludes her to this day.

About a year that Chocolate ripped a hole in our lives, a friend of mine moved to Texas. She asked if I would like to take her Pomeranian, because they could not take him with them… Yeah right… There is no such thing as a free dog. Within a week of getting our precious little pure bred black evil satanic menace, he had lunged at my son’s face, peed all over the house and ran out the door to confront a Lincoln Town Car. The car knocked the wind out of him, but the little imp survived, even more determined to use our house as his personal bathroom, and with a head tilt that gave him a permanent questioning look.

Pomeranians are prone to luxating their patellas. In other words, their bones come out of joint easily. In my financial strain, I had to have his leg put back in place three times, at 500 dollars a pop. No pun intended. The little angel even thought he could crawl through a neighbors fence and take on a full grown pit bull. This other animal picked him up by the back and shook him like a rag doll while my son stood at the fence screaming . Shadow, the black fur ball, ran into the house and hid under the couch. He snapped at us as we tried to get him to the vet. He was fine; he only had two puncture wounds in his back side and was scared. Another three hundred bucks down the tube.

Both Chocolate and Shadow are geriatric now. Their muzzles are grey, they still crap and pee in the floor any chance they get. Chocolate howls at ambulances, she's a fear biter, she scratches holes in our screen doors, she chews all my spatulas; she is impossible to walk because she pulls your arm out of joint… Shadow won’t let us groom him, so we have to spend close to fifty bucks a pop to get him groomed, he is losing teeth now, and the vets want us to do dental on him… How expensive… Wow I love those dogs…

But they are family members, and we will be with them till the end. And much to our better judgment, we will probably get another dog when they pass. What is this hold that canines have over us? Why do we put up with the pee, poop, frustration, and non trained ness? Is there such a thing as a bad dog? Or do we have the only two in the universe?

I have to go, Shadow just snuck into the kitchen, and I am pretty sure he left me a little golden puddle in the floor.

I am NOT a dog person!