And then the box moved. The red one...with suspicious holes poked in the sides. Then the box yelped...and then I knew: life as I had come to know and love it was So very over.
Lid was flung off. Puppy emerged. Chaos ensued.
A whirlwind seven months later...I am on my hands and knees scrubbing puppy poo up off the bathroom floor for [easily] the seven hundredth time. And as I grimace into the tile, I reflect on the dear little poof ball's first months with us...
For starters-it is difficult for a new puppy to adjust to switching from a high octane environment with seven people pulling, pinching, poking, petting, and pecking at you...to one where you are suddenly shut in a drafty laundry room all alone because you "made potty like a no-no-bad-dog" on the oriental rug [again]. I'm sure the poor darling felt like a yo-yo.
And there begins our problem.
The wonderful people in charge made the decision to purchase a dog that has a) long hair that is difficult to manage b) weighs less than 15 pounds (thereby putting him in a category with things that can easily be broken, injured, or killed) c) cannot play outside
and brought him to a home that a) is lucky to get the girls' hair brushed for school or church-forget the boys-we just buzz that to the scalp b) has given their children various and sundry pointy and pokey items, any of which are perfectly capable of inflicting great harm on anything smaller than an elephant, [these things are not limited to any variation of the following list: knives, guns, spears, arrowheads, machetes, fish hooks, needles, clamps, dart gun (to be fair that one wasn't given...the 11 year old actually made it from scratch), tools, axes, large sticks, broken glass bottles, and little people (which have proved to be quite the formidable foe of the downstairs toilet)].
In short this puppy has no business being in this home. But here he is. And here he will have to be, until someone leaves the back door open....which happens every four minutes around this place. Which brings me to the finding service.
I have a feeling I am soon to be on a first name basis with this service, just as I am with our local fire department. This particular service simply functions as a "middle man" if you will when your dog is found by someone else who has the decency to call the number on the tag. They then phone the home and usually talk to me on speaker phone "Yes mam. They've found your dog....again." They used to ask me for a complicated numerical sequence written on a piece of a McDonalds receipt, that I promptly lost, the children burned, or the dog ate. Now when the lady just calls and hears the raucous noise in the background she just asks how the children are and if they've even noticed he is gone.
I must regularly turn the children out in to the backyard and dispatch them on some noble mission to ensure that my brain patterns remain normal and I don't spike on the crazed nanny meter and knock one of them in the noggin.
Now the first time this little brown and white fluffy angelic poop machine was released to go and play in the back yard (attached to a leash mind you) he came back looking like Sassquatch...only smaller. He had leaves, brambles, sticks, twigs, debris, mud, dirt, insects...you name it-if it existed in the back yard it was currently attached to the dog. It was like sticking a wet lollipop under the couch cushion...he was covered with bizarre stuff.
I tried to brush him off....I sat in the kitchen floor for TWO HOURS and tried to clean up his poor coat. The children had popsicles for lunch. And still I sat there painstakingly with a brush and a comb. Eventually the scissors and the 'goo be gone' helped to rid him of most of it. Finally I put him in the sink and after three shampoos he at least began to smell like a dog again. Well...wet dog.
Then I had to blow dry him and brush him out....
Finally after THREE AND A HALF HOURS we both collapsed in a corner of the couch. He smelled faintly of oatmeal and I smelled like wet dog. I sat on the couch and tried to imagine the disastrous results of the impending doggie door installation-I could not go through this every single time he went out.
In the meantime he had jumped down from the couch and was frolicking on the den floor-no doubt invigorated by his "doggie day spa" treatment. I listened to him happily snuffling around. Just five more minutes of quiet. The snuffling turned to chewing...the chewing to wet munching...the wet munching to gagging...the gagging to--wait a minute!!
I leapt off the couch to see him wheezing in that terrible "small-plastic-item-must-be-wedged-in-trachea" way in the far corner.
You Will NOT Die on me Dog!! Not after all that!!
I opened his mouth to see a ping pong ball lodged in the back. I called for Peter-hemostats now! [Working for physicians comes in handy when you need things like hemostats because chances are...there's a pair lying around without much to do.] Fortunately the little monster had chewed a few holes in the ball before attempting to swallow it whole. With the calm hands only sheer determination and outright indignation [how dare he try to die on me!] can produce, I clamped on to the ball and pulled.
I wish I could say that was the end of the story. That all the children cheered and the dog licked my face gratefully and never poo-ed on the rug again.
Alas.
He promptly vomited all over me, Peter, and the oriental rug. Everything that he had managed to eat while outside was now inside...in one form or another.
Best thing after that?
Peter is the type of child that vomits when other people/animals vomit. If he sees/hears/smells it...its over.
And ladies and gentlemen in the house on West Avenue...it was Definitely Over.
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