Dexter the nightmare...I mean dog.

This blog may offend dog lovers.  It shouldn't because I'm just talking about my own inadequacies as a dog owner.  It's not just me who stinks at it, my entire family should be made have their canine tubes tied.



My Three Squirrels and the dog from HELL



When we moved to the country John and I promised the kids who were 5th grade, 3rd grade and first grade, that they could have a dog. (at this point John is shaking his head violently that he had NOTHING to say about this promise) So in the spring I made a voyage to Louisville to pick up a full breed Boxer Puppy.  I knew I wanted a male and I knew I wanted his name to be Dexter.  I also knew once I arrived at Dexter's puppy mill he was probably not going to be the shining star I was hoping for just based on his parents and his environment.   At this point there should have been a divine intervention and I should have slowly walked away, but I didn't.  I took Dexter home.  I figured, I still had three children that were still thriving, how hard could a dog be?

Oh, he was hard.  I don't have a clue what kept us from killing him, I really don't.  Besides the cost of buying a full breed dog, this dog did thousands of dollars in damage.  He chewed up John's prescription sun glasses, Samantha's camera, the couch....yes, THE COUCH.  I ran to the dollar store one day for literally 5 minutes and came home and he has a piece of the couch in his mouth as he runs to the door with his stub of a tail wagging.  I couldn't believe it.  When crated, he decided to chew the silky trim off the blanket, this is a true story......silk was coming out his mouth and worked it's way all through his system and it was also coming out his bum.   The crazy Vet assistant pulled the piece that was coming out his rear and he nipped at her.  So not only did we get a thousand dollar surgery vet bill, we also had the equivalent of a juvenile detention center for dogs on our front porch flashing their badge and telling us we had to quarantine Dexter because he bit the vet assistant. I said OK, I will try, but just so you  know he will chew the door knobs off the doors to get outside.  He was like Robo Dog.

Dexter would run away when you let him out to pee.  He would run right up the road to where there were horses and the horse's mommy would threaten me that there would be a bill in the mail if he harmed one of those horses.  The horses were like 40 years old and the only excercise they got was when my dog chased them.   I'm not sure why she was threatening me.  Hell, he didn't want to hurt them, he wanted to play with them.  There was no amount of coaxing him when he was with those horses.  We tried hot dogs, lunch meat, anything and everything.  One time, I had to call John home from work to get the dog in.  I told John to tell his boss my right ovary exploded and I needed to go to the hospital.  John got out of his car, yelled Dexter's name and BOOM the dog came running.  John definitely had the Alpha thing going on and Dexter was petrified of him.  People could not understand why we couldn't keep our dog under control.  I swear to the good Lord above we tried.  We bought an industrial strength collar, and a long lead.  We hooked it on a tree and he could run and exercises on this lead.  It was made out of super duper strong cable, there was no way to break it......except apparently he was strong enough when he saw a girl dog run across the yard or hell it could have been a bird.   I look outside and I'll be darned......the lead is dangling from the tree, Mighty Dog had busted it.  I collapsed in tears, yes the damn dog made me cry!

I don't even want to talk about obedience school.  He was retained in first grade.  If there was a doggy Attention Deficit Disorder, this dog would be medicated. ( We may as well throw the H in there ADHD)

Dexter died when he was only five years old and it had NOTHING to do with us choking or poisoning him.  He got cancer, like a lot of boxers, and went to doggy heaven.  (possibly)

Now tell me who's a slow learner, a year later we bought another boxer.   She came trained and it didn't take us long for the kids to have her untrained.  A week after we got her we went out to dinner for my birthday.  When we came home we found she had eaten my birthday cake and then promptly threw it up in the living room.  Happy birthday to me.  Then there was the time I put chicken in the sink to thaw and she somehow got it out of the sink and ate all our uncooked chicken.  So what's the moral of this story?  Dogs drool and cats rule!  No more dogs for me.  Cats are my favorite, we have the same bitchy personality. 




Dexter



Lack of Inspiration

last night I'm minding my own business watching Olympic diving and out of the blue I get a facebook message from a friend clear across the country asking me why I haven't been blogging.  Well the truth is, I haven't been particularly inspired lately.  I pride myself on my sense of humor and my lack of sense, but lately....I'm just not feeling it.  (well, I have a major lack of sense but the humor is gone)

So, I told my friend to give me a list of subjects and I would write something.  My first blog is going to be an honest account on why I haven't been inspired lately. 

Life:  life is hard.  I really, really get tired of the meanness, the bitterness, the conditional love thing.  If you act a certain way people will love you.  If you believe a certain way, you will be respected.  If you are a republican, you must be rich, if you are a democrat you must need food stamps.  I get tired of every time I'm on facebook it's a political spiel of some sort.  Turn on the TV, more political garbage.  All I hear is hate, hate, hate. 

Christians are made out to be idiots because they believe the Bible is inspired by God.  We are to accept people of different religions and their beliefs......except, it appears, Christianity.  The problem with some Christians is a lot of us come across as though it says
WE are to be the judge of all people.  Some actually believe their sins are somehow smaller or less important than someone Else's sins.  See, I have totally lost my funny bone! We all suck! We all fall short.

However,  I can also tell you there are a lot of super nice non-judgmental people in the world.  Has anyone ever stepped into a pile of crap?  Have you ever done something that seemed so awful you wondered how anyone could love you?  Have you ever needed a friend or family member to just say "it's OK, we are here for you NO MATTER WHAT?   I'm here to tell you I have the best friends in the world.  I have friends that if I land in a pile of crap, they will hug me before they throw my ass in the shower.  If need be they would crawl in the crap with me and carry me out.   We have all had people, who in spite of our trials and tribulations love us anyway.  At best they don't kick us when we are down.    In the words of the late Rodney King "can't we all get along?"  (OK that's not particularly inspiring, but you know what I mean!)

This has been a very strange year for us, but God has blessed us with so many people that were there. They simply showed up.  My friends laugh because I will play my cancer card if it gets me something like....oh I don't know......a vacation house in Florida...a new couch or chair, meals delivered to the house....you know just fun things.  Sometimes, people who are down and out just need someone to say "it will be ok, we will help".........

Stay tuned to my next blog where I tell you about the time my mother didn't have toilet paper and used the Kleenex that was in her hand and it had freshly chewed gum in it........That sometimes doesn't work out so well.  I'm suddenly feeling funny again, at someone elses expense, but still funny.