My Menagerie

We are a pound dog family. I feel like there are enough animals out there that really need homes. Not to mention we got the world’s greatest dog from the pound. Rocky was picked up as a stray. He was not neutered and had stage four heartworm. He was malnourished and had ribs sticking out. Scott went and picked him up, without telling me. In his defense, we’d been shopping for a dog at every pound, rescue society and web site in New England for a few months. I was about 4 months pregnant and we’d just moved in to our first home. Nonetheless, without telling me. He showed up at my office with the aforementioned malnourished dog, who was big! And ours. I never owned a dog. I really didn’t know how to have a dog. He was slobbery, big, didn’t tell me what he needed and made stinky poop from which I was not convinced that your average grocery bag was enough of a barrier.

This Rocky letting the twins read a mountain of books in his bed.

Rocky went on to show me that he could get along with Isabelle, the first pet, a cow-like cat, loved people, knew the sound of the school bus, would chase a ball as long as I threw it and would protect my his boys. He let little boys learn how to walk while balancing on him, patiently waited for little boys to use him as a step stool to get to the couch and dutifully ate anything they gave him, but never never never ate off the table or chewed things he shouldn’t. He barked only when he really really meant it. He only got on the furniture when (rarely) invited. I don’t count that he would go upstairs and sleep in the spare bed, unbeknownst to me, but not Scott. Now I don’t mean to talk about him like he’s gone, because he is dutifully retired from full-contact kid life with my father-in-law. They are good for each other and lead similar lifestyles. We miss them both terribly! They both miss the boys terribly, but living with high energy 24/7 is too much. Not to mention, Rocky’s hips got pretty bad and John has a ramp. Life without a dog is pretty lonely after life with a dog.

This was news to me, since in my life dog=Rocky=greatest dog EV-ER

Enter Violet. Not a pound dog, who chews, barks and lays on my furniture. She’s a puppy and I quote Molly, the animal whisperer, “puppies chew stuff and they have a knack for finding the things that you really love and chewing them”, like Noah’s “Toad” (of Frog and Toad) on which he drew a squiggly mouth because “he didn’t want anyone to see him in his new bathing suit” (full story and visual for another time). It almost drew tears from Noah and me. She nips at the boys…not at them really at something they are holding that she wants to play with or when Sammy is wearing one of Scott’s shirts as a nightshirt…because she is a puppy and is playing with her boys. She barks. She gets on the furniture. She is a puppy.

he is a puppy who went to get spayed this week.

The house was deadly quiet. I didn’t run. I had no company while plodding around first thing in the morning. Noah, Sam and Aidan separately then together talked about missing her. Noah sat in her crate. Scott brought her home today and if the surgery didn’t slow her down or change her demeanor at all. She was so happy to see the boys showed them and life with a puppy is back to normal. Having a puppy is an awful lot like having a baby with all the patience and trials that come along with it. When we ran tonight, yes she wanted to run, she got some energy out that she needed to then came home and hung around in the kitchen with us without jumping, barking or eating off the table. Tomorrow we’ll run again, reward the good behavior, redirect the bad behavior, run off the excess energy, love her lots, wash, rinse and repeat.

Oh yes and we also have a second cat, guppies and snails.