The Dog Saga Continued…

December 1, 2005

If you’re just joining us, this post will make a whole lot more sense if you read this post first.

Some of you have asked so I figured the whole story needed an update.

So.

I’m sure you’ll recall the fight for the Weimaraner that ended in the “s” word. By the way cmhl, the answer to your question (i.e. did we get the Weimaraner the second time around) is negative. I’m over it. I suppose that sweet little puppy was, in the end, just a pawn in my sick game against those teenage chics. Sometimes I wonder if I really have a heart.

Alright. So the Weimaraner’s out. The dog search continues and I’ve now reached a whole new level of desperation. And a few days later we get lucky. We meet Sophie, a 6-month old black lab/hound mix. I love her instantly, of course. The kids are cautiously excited about the possibility of her joining our family and Brian, well, he doesn’t like her. But she’s got a lot going for her—she’s lived with a 5 year old & a 2 year old already, she’s almost completely house trained and she’s cute as all get out with her sad face and long, hound ears. (Well, Brian doesn’t think she’s cute. It’s because he really wants a Golden Retriever.)

Nevertheless, he agrees to take her and I’m finally feeling like things are moving in the right direction. We meet her on a Friday night and she still needs to be spayed which can’t be done until Monday and then she needs a day to recover so we can’t pick her up until Tuesday. I’m bummed. Brian’s relieved. I think he figures he’ll have 4 days to talk me out of it.

Well, Friday to Tuesday are perhaps some of the worst days of marriage we’ve had in a long, long time. And over a dumb dog. This should be Clue #1. I want the dog. He doesn’t, but at the last moment, he reads Ephesians 5:28 “husbands out to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man is actually loving himself when he loves his wife.” He figures if he was me, he’d get himself that dog. So, he decides it’s the right thing to do to let me get the dog. (This is the part of Ephesians 5 I really like.)

So, I pick her up Tuesday. As soon as they hand her over to me, she pees. Clue #2. Then I take her to the car and girlfriend will NOT get into the car. Consequently, I have to LIFT her into the car. First of all, she probably weighs 50 pounds. Secondly, I’m pregnant. I think 40 pounds is my limit. Clues #3 & #4.

So she’s sittin’ in the passenger’s seat and she’s drooling all over creation. Clue #5. And every time I brake, her nose becomes one with the dashboard. Clue #6.

We finally get home and she spends the first hour sniffing every last atom of the house. OK. Whatever. She also consumes every piece of dried, crusty food that the kids have dropped on the floor. This I like because (and I unabashedly admit it) this is one of the main reasons I wanted her in the first place. Now, I know there are those of you who may think I’m horrible because dogs really should not be allowed to eat human scraps, especially under the dining room table. Well, that may be true but having two small children simply trumps the fact that dogs should not be allowed to eat human scraps. That’s right. THAT DOG WILL EARN HER KEEP BY MOPPING MY FLOOR!

Well, like the good dog owner I am (minus the food scraps part) I take her out to go potty on a regular basis. I’m happy to say she pees EVERY SINGLE TIME I take her out. There is one problem, however. EVER SINGLE TIME I bring her back in, she promptly pees again. ON. MY. FLOOR. I suddenly realize she is not a normal living being. No. She’s got peeing issues. She will only pee in batches. And I have a question. WHAT MAN, WOMAN, BOY, GIRL OR ANIMAL WANTS TO PEE IN BATCHES? Like, I’ll sit on the toilet, pee, stop myself halfway through, get up, putz around and then 3 minutes later, sit back down on the toilet and pee the rest of the way. WHAT IS THE POINT OF THAT? For heaven’s sake dog, WOULD YOU JUST GET IT ALL OUT IN ONE SHOT? Housebroken, MY FOOT! Clue #…what number am I on?

So, it’s bedtime. And she’s in a quandary. She desperately wants to be with her people, but she’s got another problem: she is PETRIFIED OF THE STAIRS. Going up or down is no easy task. As I watch her I am so glad she’s not a human being because I cannot help but laugh OUT LOUD as she trips and stumbles and then when she finally makes it, she looks back as if to say, “Whew, that was inTENSE!” (I should really be more sympathetic because I think I know what her problem is—her body is not growing at the same speed as her brain. I was there. I was about 14 and one day I’d be walking along and I’d trip over absolutely nothing and it was like, “Geez, my legs weren’t this long yesterday.”)

So, as I was saying, it’s bedtime and it takes her forever and a day to get herself up the stairs. It takes another eternity for her to decide where she’s going to sleep. Oh yeah, she pees once or twice in there too. So, I’m in bed, out of bed, cleaning up pee, taking her out in the FREEZING cold rain so she can go potty, coming back in, dealing with her stair phobia, waiting until she finds a place to sleep, etc. etc. etc. This goes on until about 2 am at which time I wake up to a strange gurgling sound. I get up and she is in my closet, PUKING on the floor. TWICE. IN DIFFERENT SPOTS. And here’s me, on my knees, in my very small, very UNventilated closet (with the door closed so as not to wake up Brian who didn’t want this dog in the first place), staring at dog vomit, AT 2 AM. And with what shall I clean this mess up? And should I just leave it until the morning? And I THINK I’M GONNA HURL!

I finally get it all cleaned up, take her out one last time to go potty and then she suddenly decides, she will NOT climb those darn stairs ONE MORE TIME. No. She will sit at the bottom and cry and whimper instead. Well, girlfriend, I don’t care what the books say about the importance of sleeping close to your people. It’s you and the kitchen baby. By the way, DO NOT PEE. AGAIN. IT IS NEARLY 3 AM AND YOU HAVE HAD AMPLE OPPORTUNITY TO DO YOUR THING THE LAST 52 TIMES I TOOK YOU OUT IN THE LAST 4 HOURS. Surely you can hold it for 4 hours. YOU. OWE. ME.

I finally sleep, albeit shortly, only to find another puddle on the floor welcoming me in the morning…followed by 2 bouts of diarrhea a few hours later. I call my neighbor who wonders if the transition has made her nervous. Yeah? Well, that makes two of us.

So, what do I do? I do exactly what I’ve wished I could do with my very own children on several occasions: I send her right back to where she came from. That’s right. We get into the car not 30 hours after her arrival and back she goes to the shelter.

And I am SO glad we got Sophie. You know why? Because she took that dog bug right out of my system faster than I can say “dog puke.” We will NOT be getting another dog for a very, very, very long time.

I told you I have no heart.

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I'm Amy. I have issues. And I am was the pastor's wife. Here's what happened.

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