Dog Days of ... Never!!

This Christmas, we welcomed home an 18lb lab/golden retriever puppy named Madeline, Maddie for short. She is a beautiful and smart dog that anyone would be happy to say they owned. Unless, you're me.

My daughter, Avery, the cute one there in the pic with the glasses, has wanted a dog for as long as I can remember. Obsessively so. I have always told her "no", we are not voluntarily getting another mouth to feed and butt to wipe. I refuse. But my father-in-law had other ideas.
You see, he has 4 "yappers" at home. One poodle, aka the ugliest, most annoying dog God ever gave life to, and 3 yorkies. The kind that look like Cousin It. Disgusting. They are freaky. It's as if the wigs and Mona's House of Hair came to life and are now free to roam around the house yapping and sniffing and licking and crapping and peeing and...I digress. Anyway, the point is, he didn't get my point. He thought that it would be a wonderful idea to get the kids a dog. "Every kid needs a dog. It's a rite of passage in childhood." Puh-lease. I did not have a dog growing up and I am a well adjusted adult. Thank you very much.

So, I learn of this dog about 3 weeks before Christmas and am then put in the position of being a total 'B' and denying my children this momentous event in their young lives. Blah, blah, blah. Whatever. But after some soul-searching and prayer and just pretty much getting over myself and all my reservations, wants and sanity, I agree. However, the conditions were this: the kids take excellent care of the dog, or she goes back to Papaw, the dog costs me no more than a couple hundred dollars for shots, wormer and fixing, or she goes back to Papaw, the dog becomes a live-in terrorist and she will...GO BACK TO PAPAW!! So, all of the parties involved agreed to my terms and...lo and behold, I actually began to get excited for this new arrival. Mind you, I was accepting this critter, sight unseen.

The kids finally get the dog and I'm thinking that I might end up in the emergency room later that evening when my daughter goes into cardiac arrest. She screamed and turned the color of an overripe tomato. I have never seen her so excited. She couldn't believe that even though Santa had failed her, Papaw came through and got her a dog. He also bought them new bikes, clothes and toys. Ahem, somebody wanted to be Papaw #1 for a change and he succeeded.
I expected some turbulence at first. After all, the dog is just a baby, really. There would no doubt be some accidents, but I had prepared myself for the worst. So, the first few days go as I had anticipated. She does her business in every room of the house and I am at my wits end when finally, she gets it. After given some tips from a few friends, we actually trained her a bit. She sleeps through the night and she rings a bell at the door when she needs to go out and stops doing something when I tell her 'no'. I'll give it to her, she is one smart girl.

Now, here's how stupid I am. I have control issues and this dog doesn't get that. She doesn't know that I am on a schedule and I need her to get up in the morning and pee and poop and eat and leave the rest of us alone. She refuses to get on board with this routine and it is driving me nuts. When I take her out because she has just wrung the bell for the hundredth time in a matter of an hour, she should just drop it like it's hot and get back in the house. I mean, after all, it is 20 degrees outside and there seems to constantly be snow to trek through. But, no. She wants the grand tour of the yard during each outing. Why does she need to sniff around for 20 minutes just to drop a load or pee? Really?! Come on already!! I figure on average she wastes about 47 minutes of my life that I can never get back. And then there is the ringing of the bell just to go outside. She is abusing the bell and I want to abuse her!! It chaps my tale to get all wrapped up in my winter weather gear just to go outside and stare at the streetlight. And the worst part is that I find myself telling the dog off during these wasted moments. I think that I am a reasonably intelligent person, but I have, on more than one occassion, loudly and forcefully enunciated the word "potty" in hopes that she'll just freaking pee. Did some insane part of my brain think that if I spoke more clearly she would squat and get it over with?

She's a bitch but, the kids love her. Absolutely love her and I will admit that she is probably the cutest dog I've seen. I'm just waiting for the day when she is content with lying around with no desire to exist for hours on end and only pees 3 times a day. I suppose at that point the children will be in college and there will be no need for her presence. Ain't that the way...