Don’s Ego

And just like that, the dog is gone. My sister and her family returned from their week-long vacation and took the dog, yesterday. Now, all I’m left with is games of fetch with my eight-year-old daughter and, unlike the dog, she’s very sassy and says she doesn’t want to play fetch.

The dog never argued about fetch. The dog also never complained when I got up early at 5 a.m. to write, cook breakfast, and exercise. He curled up under my kitchen table while I plugged away at the laptop and went right back to sleep, but it was nice to have the company. It’s sort of weird how I got used to having that li’l guy around.

Which brings me to my next dilemma. Ahem. I really enjoyed that dog. I mentioned this, but I had a dog before. I had a dog for 7 years, in fact. It was a beagle. That beagle was a nightmare …sort of. And mostly towards the end when the house had diapers everywhere and the needs of a 5-, 3-, and 1-year-old took priority, and out of boredom she’d rummage through the trash, she’d eat diapers, she’d hunt down skunks and get sprayed, and most disgusting of all, she’d eat her own poop in the yard and then come inside and throw up on my carpets.

If I’d spent this past week dealing with that, I wouldn’t miss the dog as much. *sigh* I’m going for a job here, shortly … by …myself.

Wanna know the other thing I screwed up? I broke my oldest daughter’s heart – BIG TIME. On Sunday, after church, the wife needed to hit Kohls for a birthday present. Next door to Kohls is Petco. Often, on Sundays, we’ll hit that Petco because they have pet adoption. Usually it’s just a bunch of angry, too big, Rotweiller or Pitbull mixes that are fun to pet, and we leave only discussing when and if we’ll ever get guinea pigs (note: I’ve promised my oldest 2 guinea pigs for perfect report cards throughout 3rd Grade this next year).

Then, when we were about to leave, Petco carted in 4 cages full of 7-week-old puppies. Eight puppies and, get this, they were Catahoula-Leapord Dog-mixes, which just happens to be the same breed we were dogsitting all week. Did I abruptly grab my children and race out of the store? Oh, no …we hung around and hung around and waited until they could let us hold one …a beautifully colored puppy that sat and shivered in my wife and my daughter’s arms for almost 20-minutes. My wife, who is more dead set against another dog than I am, started joining my daughter in the “I want a dog” rally.

This blog entry is waaaaaay too long. And I’m sorry, but at this point, it’s therapy.

I told myself, if I ever get a dog again, it will be a mutt. The less identifiable the mutt, the better. I had a mutt growing up and mutts are always docile and tend to be smarter, in my opinion. Pure breds are all designed for specific functions (hunting, herding, fighting, protecting) and if you aren’t using a pure bred for their intended purpose, based on my beagle, I think the dog becomes miserable. Mutts have no agenda. So this dog was (a) a mutt, (b) cute, (c) part Catahoula, which is now my gold standard for quality companion and running dog, and (d) cute. Or had I mentioned cute?

Meanwhile, my wife was justifying how it would be different this time. And my sister was texting me that we could handle it now. And my daughter was crying and claiming that her heart was going to explode and her stomach felt sick. And I …walked out and went to Kohls, and I dragged my heartbroken daughter with me.

No dog.

See, I’m selfish. If I have $500 to spend, I don’t want to spend it on a dog, dog food, toys, shots, neutering, leashes, and kennels from time to time. I don’t want to have to add another variable to my life and another dependent (unless I added another human child to my world, that is). Dogsitting for a week was great. I’m a GREAT dogsitter. I hope my sister goes on vacation again soon, actually (so I can dogsit, again). Dogs are cool. I’m just not a dog owner.

The hardest part about all this was breaking my daughter’s heart. As my wife shopped, I walked my sobbing daughter around Kohls and just apologized. I wasn’t going tell her “don’t be sad” and “stop crying” …I did it. I broke her heart. I felt very, very badly about that.

So, that’s that. For the moment, no dog. I miss dogsitting. I miss the dog. But no dog.

Here’s a few more videos we shot and sent to my sister so she and her boys wouldn’t miss their dog so much. Hmmm …will they send me a video? I mean, just a quick one so I can see how the dog is doing? *sniff*. OK …here you go. Have a great dog-free Tuesday.