I like animals. Almost all of them. I can walk around a pet store and generally think I need every living creature in it. Even snakes. I draw the line at ferrets...they are too...ferrety. Anyway, in my life time I've had dogs, cats, birds, fish and horses. I had a cockatoo once that thought I was it's mate. It screamed "ERIC" all the time because it thought it was my mating call...because I yelled at my oldest son so much...but I digress.
I'm a pet junkie. I watch Animal Hoarders with rapt attention knowing that with one trip to the shelter I'd be their next feature story. Going to PetSmart or to The Pet Food Center makes me positively quiver with excitement. For some women, it's shoes...for me, it's leashes. If you take me to a horse tack store I nearly pass out. I can't keep my hands off the fine crafted leather reins and bridles and I am transfixed by the array of bits and saddlery. It's an sickness. I love animals and their stuff.
When I moved to Evansville, Tom already had a dog, Charlie. She's a black, mid-sized, snarky little mutt and she and I have this little agreement. I like to pretend like I'm choking her to death and she likes to pretend like she's trying to kill me. It's like a little dance we do. There's a huge cloud of black fur and growling while it goes on, but afterwards I bonk her on the head a few times and she happily tries to gnaw my arm off and we're all good for a few days and then we do it again. Some dogs like to snuggle. Charlie is not one of those dogs. She likes attempted murder. She's happy, I'm happy, it all works out. Because of Charlie, I did not submit Tom to my two pomeranian dogs that I had prior to our marriage and gave custody of them to my ex husband. He's been trying to give it back ever since. That's a different story.
We really didn't need any more pets. However, I kept lamenting about how I didn't have a dog of my own, we only had CHARLIE and she was a BITCH. We started tossing around the idea of a puppy. Meaning I mentioned it roughly every 30 seconds. Somehow, and I couldn't tell you how because it gets blurry, we ended up in some remote corner of Indiana at a Labrador Retriever breeder. In a small shack like kennel building, the breeder unceremoniously dumped about 11,000 lab puppies on the floor for us to choose from. They all toddled around drunkenly, being hopelessly cute and definitely smelly simultaneously. Suddenly one caught my eye. She was black and had the biggest head and paws of the entire group. I picked her. Tom has never let me forget it. We named her Sophie and she now qualifies as a continent. One day I thought it would be cute to take her to school to pick up Emma (she was grown at this point) and I nearly died on the Lloyd Expressway while a 120 pound terrified black idiot clung to me. Apparently we need to socialize her to the car a little more.
So now we had two. Charlie routinely beat the crap out of Sophie until Sophie outweighed her significantly and then...she continued to beat the crap out of Sophie. Sophie just lays on the ground and lets Charlie leap around her growling and biting. If she ever figures out how large she is, she'll know she can clock Charlie with one of her massive paws and the whole pecking order will be established as it should be. Until then Sophie lets Charlie think she's in charge. Sort of like I let Tom think he's in charge...oh honey...do you read my blog?
One December day, Tom and I were packing away Mexican food at lunch and I suggested we go to the local shelter to "just look". Tom eyed me warily. He knows what that means...so do you...this story is predictable, yes? So with cilantro laden breath, off we went to the shelter. Of course the adorable pomeranian puppy mix that I wanted was already adopted...and from the look of the liquid puppy dropping all over the cage, in retrospect, I'm glad it was. I perused the cats and then we hit the small dog area.
It was the usual assortment of small mutts. Cute, but nothing really that we needed...until we rounded the corner and there she was...standing defiantly in her kennel, sickle like tail bristling...a chihuahua. "LOOK AT HER", I cooed. Soon I had her in a play room and I was making her talk to Tom with a Mexican accent. She seemed to like me...I think the Mexican food on my breath had something to do with it...and she muttered several growls at Tom which I thought was....positive somehow. Next thing I knew I was sitting in the car with her on my lap, adoption papers and welcome home kit stashed neatly under the dash. We went to PetSmart next. I was approaching Nirvana.
So now we live with three dogs. The level of dog hair from the two black dogs is approaching the disaster status of Chernobyl. I've given up on keeping the white kitchen floor even remotely white. Picking up dog droppings is our new hobby and Tom and I haven't slept next to each other in bed since a day in December. That's when that little Mexican moved in and took over our queen sized bed. I'm off to Google the INS now. Although with her around, and me furnishing her speaking voice with a delicious Mexican accent, I get away with calling Tom vulgar names in Spanish. If he ever figures out the dog isn't really talking...I could be in trouble...oh honey....you DO read my blog??
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