Wednesday, December 29, 2004

good to know.....

Ever feel a certain way about something and feel like you're the only one who feels that way? (Yeah, too many feels, but you're not having to pay for this, so what do you care?) And when you express yourself on that topic or subject, people look at you like you belong in a mental institution? Every once in awhile you find someone who feels the same way you do about this particular subject, and you realize that it's not just you.

We have a dog at our house, and his name is Wally. Notice, I said that we have a dog at our house, not "I have a dog." I used to think that I was a dog-lover. I'd see other people with a dog, and they'd look so happy to have a faithful companion. The owner would throw a ball or a stick, and the dog would retrieve it, tail wagging and ready to do it all over again. Seeing things like this, it makes you want a dog. Growing up, I had very bad alergies and therefore could never have a pet (other than fish), and I really thought I was missing out on something.

When I moved to Nashville, I really wanted a dog. But because I was on the road about 1-2 weeks a month, it just wasn't going to work out. So I got a cat. They're more self-reliant, and I thought it would be a good alternative. Bad idea. The first one I had ended up running away (a little too self-reliant), and the other one developed lukemia and died right after the bride and I met.

When we were first married, we lived in a 560-square-foot apartment - much too small for an animal, right? One day, the lady who cut our hair mentioned that a friend had a pure-bred English Bulldog who just had puppies, and was giving them away. What a deal! I'd ALWAYS wanted an English Bulldog, but they were always so expensive, so this was the perfect opportunity for us! We picked him up, brought him home and named him Radar (after Gary Burghoff's character on MASH). He had the Bulldog scrunched-up face, just like his mother. The father was obviously not a Bulldog, but probably something like a horse, because his legs grew about three inches in two weeks. When we left for work every morning, we had to pin him in the kitchen by propping our kithen table over the doorway to the kitchen. He liked to go to the bathroom at 2:00 AM, and I had to take him out. He liked to grab the bride's nightgown and tug at it as she walked through the house. He peed on the bride's pillow one night. That might have been the final nail in the coffin.

In 1999, after much begging from our daughters, we did a little more research before getting a dog this time. We decided that since we had a fenced back yard, we'd get a bigger dog. We told the girls that we'd get a dog when we got back from vacation. As we got off the interstate to go to our house, Sara, who was 4 at the time, said "Can we go get our dog tomorrow?" We ended up with a chocolate Lab, Coco, and brought her home when she was about 8 weeks old. She was a beautiful dog, and very playful. As a very young (and small) puppy, we all had alot of fun with her. However, as Coco grew, she somehow believed that she was a lap dog. At 8 months old, she weighed 53 pounds and would place her paws on the bride's shoulders whenever she went outside. All dogs, especially Labs, need alot of human interaction. Our girls are more inside-types, and because Coco was an outside dog, she didn't get the attention she needed, so she found things to do. She chewed off corners of our utility shed. She chewed through the cable wiring on the outside of the house. She liked to knock Sara down in the snow since Sara was about eye-level to her. I had to play the villain and find a new home for Coco. I wasn't too popular with my daughters for some time. We found a guy who owns a 150-acre farm with plenty of creeks and ponds about 35 east of Nashville, and now Coco is a duck hunting dog. And probably much happier, too.

This brings us to Wally. I told the girls that since our new house would have a smaller yard, we'd get them a dog after we moved, and it would be an inside dog. We decided that we'd get a dog from a local shelter, one that would obviously need a home. After several weeks of looking at dogs on the shelter's web site, we found Wally. He had been picked up wandering the streets of Clarksville, and was 1/2 Beagle and 1/2 Bassett. When we picked him up, he seemed to be the perfect dog. We brought him home, and he didn't bark at all the first 36 hours. He hasn't stopped barking and howling for the past three years. On his first trip upstairs, he toppled over a ficus tree and spread the wood chips, so we got a baby gate for the stairs. A couple of days later, he left a "present" for me behind my recliner. We finally had an invisible fence installed about 9 months later, and he's now an outside dog. As dogs go, he's probably a great one. The girls love him, and he loves them. He's very gentle and loves attention. But again, I've learned I'm not a dog person.

So I was talking to a vendor yesterday, and we got on the subject of having a dog. He said that he liked dogs, and liked to play with other people's dogs, but he didn't like having one himself. A light went off inside my head. "What's this? Another kindred spirit? Someone else who feels the same way about dog ownership as me?" He said he gave into his wife and daughter and they bought a dog. After 6 months, he told his wife that he just couldn't take it any more with the dog. And, as if on cue, he started naming off the reasons he didn't like owning a dog: the day-to-day care and responsibility, the smell, the hair, etc. As he's saying this, I'm checking things off the list, like I used to do when I collected baseball cards as a kid. I told him that I thought I was the only person on the planet who didn't want to own a dog.

It's good to know that I'm not alone when it comes to my feelings on dog ownership. Am I getting rid our Wally? No, he'll be around for awhile. But I seriously doubt that there will EVER be another dog at our house. In fact, I've given the bride SPECIFIC instructions on what to do to me if I even think about getting another dog. Let's just say that it would be very painful for me. Would she follow through with it? Probably not, but there have been days that she wouldn't have a problem with doing it.....

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