Dog Days

Jesse mentioned yesterday that she was very tired of dogs, and she was not talking about our puppies. At my brother’s house on Christmas Eve, we had our dog, Ranger; Craig’s dog, Chula; and Pete’s dogs, Katie and Dobie. Dobie was the only "outside" dog. The others were all little dogs with big ego problems. There were several squabbles through out the evening between little dogs invading each other’s space, but it was mostly harmless growls and small nips.

Because Pete lives in the traditional neighborhood with the traditional back yard where he keeps his dogs, he has traditional dog poop. After following my granddaughter around the backyard from the tree house to the trampoline for awhile, I started in the house to discover that I had stepped in dog poop with BOTH feet. I cleaned on my shoes for a while finally taking them off to leave outside. Sara had to do the same thing. Yuck!

After dinner at Pete’s we started opening gifts, when two of the little dogs got too close to each other and decided to have a big fight. It probably sounded more vicious than it was, but it caused lots of excitement. They turned over someone’s coke in the process. In all of the excitement, I stepped right in the spilled coke with my stocking feet. Pretty irritating!

Then later as we were leaving, I had Toby bring me my stinky shoes. I put them on outside, walked to the car, took them off, and handed them to Toby to put in the trunk. Unfortunately, my car door was stuck in the neighbor’s grass and would not shut. Rather than rip out a chunk of grass, I stepped out of the car to lift the car door and stepped in a puddle of Dr. Pepper that Jesse had just poured out. She said the DOG had chewed the lid off of the bottle - so she had just poured it out never thinking that it would run along the curb and I would step in it. She and Toby both laughed at me as I pulled off my socks for the trip home.

But she laughed too soon! We decided to leave our dog at home Christmas Day knowing that Toby’s nephew had a dog that would probably eat Ranger (we were all tired of dogs anyway). Sure enough, the nephew had his dog there. It was a nasty looking mutt with a scar on it’s head from being bitten by it’s own mom. Supposedly, it was part pitbull. As the kids ran and played football and Frisbee, the dog would chase them often tripping them, growling, and biting at them. It seemed harmless enough until it took down one of the big boys and bit him on the bum. Even then we all laughed it off thinking the dog harmless. Afterall, the cousin that he bit looked pretty scary himself. Towards evening, Jesse took the grandbaby outside and the dog was there with them. Lizzie took off running toward the pool, and Jesse went to chase her. There were only a few quick steps involved in the whole chase scene, but the dog growled and bit Jesse on her bum. It really made Jesse mad, but she handled it well. Me, I was for getting rid of the dog.

If you can believe it, Pete and his family came to our house the next day – bringing their dog. Sure enough, our mama dog who is normally very gentle attacked their dog several times. I guess she was protecting the puppies. Like Jesse, I am a little tired of dogs. Yesterday she made a poster for the puppies, and we gave away two dogs already.