Puppy Love

I have never claimed to be a fast learner. I often do make the same mistake twice, with good intentions of course. But when it comes to family pets, I am a slow learner. A repeat offender if you will. When we first moved into our house we decided we should get a dog. We had a fenced back yard and it just seemed right. We had a dog when we lived in our apartment in Florida, briefly. Amazingly I remember very little about this experience. I do remember that it didn't end well. I went to work one night on the notion that it was either me or the dog. I came home that night and she was gone. I promised I would not ever get myself into a mess like that again.

Back to getting the house and deciding we needed a dog to achieve the "American Dream." I reasoned with myself. Just because one situation was bad doesn't mean we shouldn't try again. I mean, back then we lived in a small apartment and worked a lot. Now we're home more, and the dog would have lots of room to run. Yeah, we could definitely do this. The King knew someone at work that bred Border Collie's and soon Dakota became a part of our family. In all fairness she was a good dog. She lived outside with the exception of coming in to sleep, and she rarely barked. But she tore up the yard. She dug up flowers, trampled the grass, knocked out the lattice on the deck. We put up with all of that even though it drove me absolutely insane. Then before we had the chance to get her fixed, I know we should've done this right away, hearts ran wild and she became "with pups."

Now we had 6 dogs. 1 border collie, 5 mutts. Thankfully we found homes for all of them. ALL of them. We were again dogless. I could breathe again. We replanted the grass, planted some new flowers, and the kids ran barefoot through the grass with no fear. Time passed. Summer faded to fall and one boring Saturday the King was flipping through the paper when he saw an add for Beagle puppies. Beagles are cute, they can be crate trained, we could keep it inside to protect the yard..... Yeah, we bought one.

The cute little puppy got big. I wouldn't let her live indoors full time for anything. She has that "houndy" odor. The one I read about in a book about Beagles the day after we bought one. She chews up everything and I am sure we will be doing some replanting in the spring. What is wrong with me? I do it for the kids, but really I should've got them a digi pet.