I realized I haven't blogged in awhile . I have been up to my elbows...make that shoulders, in dog. My dog has taken over most of my time and just about all of my sleeping quarters. Plus, every time I would sit down to write I would have to keep adding another item to the list of stuff Finn has eaten/destroyed. To date the list includes ( and may be updated mid blog):
A pound of cooked bacon
Two small steaks
A container of Nestles' Quik ( 95% sugar, not chocolate, I checked)
A pair of my daughter's pricey hospital work shoes
One and half travel mugs
A wooden spoon
1/2 carton of Italian seasoned bread crumbs (carton included)
Most of a puzzle
Two sticks of butter
Numerous flip flops
The octopus part of a Dr. Octopus action figure
A box of toothpicks
Various sections of the Buffalo News
A sippy cup or two
Numerous plastic containers
A plate of leftover wagon wheel pasta
Possibly an E Cigarette (it's missing, and I do have a very suspicious looking cat I've been questioning)...
I can't tell you how I panic when I can't located my phone, my glasses or one of the other pets. But I can tell you how much I LOVE this dog! He is truly a knucklehead, but I defend him like a bad parent that makes excuses for their unruly teenager. " I put the dish in the sink and not the dishwasher, so it's really my fault he got to it" Most of my conversations are peppered with Tourette like out bursts of "Get down Finn" or "knock it off Finn". But this extra large, 7 month old, 40 or 50 pound puppy has my heart and some of my shoes.
I may have mentioned, in a previous blog, that he escaped a couple months ago while on a walk. He was found 22 hours later. They were 22 of the most heartbreaking hours too. I felt guilty that I did something wrong, I was petrified that he was petrified being somewhere strange. In fact, he was found in a garage ...petrified. I was actually surprised at my reaction. I have lost pets before ( one just a few months previous), This was different, he was lost- lost. I didn't know where he was and the uncertainty of it and loss of control just sucker punched me in the gut. Now the events of the last couple years have been anything but smooth sailing, and maybe this was just the last straw, but I cried like a baby over this dog. Even his arch enemy/partner in crime, Louie the miracle dog missed him! He was moping around the house until we found him....then immediately back to hating him!
Not to say there were not some bright moments, even some we found humorous (surprise surprise) in this ordeal. Just the fact that we were driving (on an anonymous tip) 20 plus miles away looking for him while he was snuggled in a garage a half a block away. Also that the first person we stopped and asked if they "had seen a dog" was blind., yep blind. "have you seen a dog....ever?" We stopped sketchiest looking people, people I wouldn't have asked for help if I was on fire. "Have you seen my lost puppy, Mr. Drug Dealer." EVERY person had a story to tell us about their dog too... everyone was Dr. Fucking Doolittle ....my dog this and my dog that. This isn't a freaking episode of Too Cute on Animal Planet- have you seen my dog or not, asshole?
Kidding aside, the people that rallied around to help find my Finn was overwhelming. Social media and face to face human contact with SPCAs and Animal Control were ready, willing and able to help ..which they did! So my big, blobby face, floppy eared monster dog is here at my feet as I blog today. I am so lucky and appreciative of every moment he is here. ( maybe not the shoe chewing part....but it's not his fault....he's just a puppy)
Now in our 30 plus years of marriage, we have had a menagerie of animals of all shapes and sizes starting with Toots. Toots was a the giant parrot ( a nanday conure to be exact.) We couldn't have pets in our first apartment and I have always wanted a house full of animals. You see, my mom was sort of anti-animal. We did not have pets growing up (not counting the scores of goldfish, a few of which were suicidal which were found outside of the bowl and of course, Tommy the turtle that RAN away, really, ran?)
We used to spend our childhood summers in a beautiful cottage in Canada. One day my dad brought home two kittens, Blackie and Sylvester. Now I choose to use Blackie when we play the Porn Name Game and the fact that I was born on Busti Avenue, well, yeah I usually win! Best porn name, with maybe the exception of my husband's: Toots Mt. Vernon. yeeesssss! So yeah, Toots was his first pet experience. So when I suggested a bird, he came home with this loud, but gorgeous, but loud, caw-ing Jurassic Park-ish creature. He lasted not even a year. I got pregnant and I think my husband feared I would bang on the crib with a rolled up newspaper when our baby made noise, so he got rid of Toots. I am not sure who or where but he gave him to a friend who may or may not have lived in the Rain Forest. We had 3 birds total in our pet owning career, Toots, Larry Bird and Snapple. Snapple 's official cause of death: licked to death by our cat, Willie. Larry Bird also died under mysterious circumstances after we failed to bring him to the St. Francis pet blessing at our church. Coincidence...I think not. We also had our share of rodents too, MC Hamster, Cosmo the Guinea Pig. After the Larry Bird incident, we decided to take all our pets to be blessed. We would show up with two dogs, two cats and shoe box of hamsters. We would come up to the priest with a shaking Nike box, the lid a-rumbling and he would thumb though the Bible looking for the section on exorcism. One time we had a guinea pig in a little Igloo cooler, the kind people use when they are harvesting organs. We dreamt this elaborate scenario where there was a case of the mistaken cooler, you know, the old pick up the wrong brief case bit. There in the O.R.- a much surprised doctor, expecting a throbbing organ, is handed a screeching ball of fur. You think of a lot of things when you are managing three kids and six pets. I always hoped, as I waited in line, that I would be blessed as well. I think when you own pets, you kind of already are.
The priest would run by us and splash the whole lot of us with holy water. Sometimes it helped, sometimes it didn't. Enter Johnny Cash ( a didn't) . Johnny Cash was a Mother's Day present after losing Simba, our beloved first family cat. Johnny Cash, a little black cat ( get it.. man in black) that was sweet as can be but had a little problem with the liter box and would pee where ever and when ever ( which I heard the actual Johnny Cash did as well). He didn't last long, I can safely say he did NOT walk the line. I can take a lot of animal behavior, but don't pee on my couch, I don't care how many Grammy Awards you have.
Cats are funny - they always have to be somewhere really, really fast, that is when they are not laying in the sun like it's African Lion Safari. You are never scared at night when you have cats. When you mysteriously hear the piano, you are secure in the fact that it's the cats walking across the keys and not some scary ghost. One night I heard this repetition of thump thump thump thump thump and then a scramble up the stairs. This went on for a while. I couldn't resist. I had to investigate (again, if I didn't have cats I would have been horrified) Well what I found was one cat, Leo on the top of the basement stairs, the other one, Willie, at the bottom and a little bouncy ball bouncing down the steps thump thump thump... and then, they would switch spots!! I couldn't believe- they had quite the sophisticated operation going on. When I turned on the lights they both stopped dead, and froze. They looked like a picture on the cover of the National Inquirer- caught in the act!!!
I can't image my life with a pet, as my kids move out and start their own families (human and animal) I am glad to have the companionship of a loyal, slobbery old friend by my side...and my dog ( insert rim shot). This fall, I expect my next grandchild ( a granddaughter! YAY!!!) and I am sure I will have soooo much to blog about, so many new experiences as Gaga. I really wanted to get one in about my little four legged babies! I am also glad to report no animal was harmed and nothing was destroyed during the writing of this blog. Finn is just sitting there, staring at me with those eyes...adoring me as much as I adore him...must be Puppy Love...just sayin'
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