The Monkey Dog Strikes Back

We have these two dogs that live with us. The first dog came here about four years ago. I was innocently dropping books off at the library one day and when I came home the kiddo had talked her dad into going to the SPCA to ‘look’ at the dogs. So we all piled into the SUV and headed to the shelter.

We’d been having this ‘get a dog – don’t get a dog’ discussion for quite a while. Hubby and I were in the camp of ‘don’t get a dog.’ (The previous dog had died of old age a couple of years earlier and we weren’t ready to take care of another one.)

At the shelter the kiddo picks out a little Chihuahua type dog and we take it into the ‘Get Acquainted Room’ to, you know, get acquainted. The little dog runs around the room once, comes straight over to me and I’m thinking ‘Oh how sweet! He likes me.’ and in the next instant the thing hikes his leg and pees on my purse. Little creep.

Out he goes and we start the process of looking in all the cages again. In one cage is the strangest looking dog I’ve ever seen. Its legs are 3 inches long and its body is about 2 feet long. It has the head of a wolf with huge Dorito chip ears. One of the dog’s eyes is ice blue and the other one is marbled blue and brown. Its coat is a mottled gray, black and brown and the tail is long and shaggy. It was the saddest looking dog ever. I’m a sucker for big sad eyes and I thought that if we didn’t adopt that dog nobody else would. (And he didn’t pee on my purse. That’s always a good sign.)

So we have that dog for a while and he’s a sweet dog. He’s got a few health issues and he’s gained some weight and he never really was a lapdog anyway. The kiddo has decided we need a lapdog. A dog we can hold and carry around in a purse. And hey, who doesn’t need a dog they can put in a purse and carry around? Apparently, purse dogs aren’t just for crazy people anymore.

We load up in the SUV again and head to the dog place. This time we see this rat like monkey looking dog thing. Uh oh. Another weird looking dog that needs a home. It’s small. Tiny really. So it meets the purse requirement. And it’s lively. It’ll play and chase toys which our other dog won’t do at all.

It was a little difficult in the beginning because dog no. 1 (We’ll call him Comet.) wasn’t thrilled with a new addition to the family. He was happy with the way things were and didn’t see the need to bring some rat/dog thing into the house.

But Comet doesn’t get to vote and evidently we’re suckers for rat-dogs. The only problem is this dog is not a dog at all. It’s a puppy! Comet was 2 years old when we got him. He has never done anything more than lie around and roll over to have his belly scratched.

The puppy has more energy than a case of Red Bull. She chews. On everything. The wood trim. The coffee table. My COMPUTER cord. :(

Thank goodness she’s cute. That’s the only thing that has saved her life on several occasions. (Just kidding. Sort of.)

We’ve had the puppy (We’ll call her Clara.) for about 4 months and we’re working on several issues with her. House breaking issues, chewing on everything issues and the waking me up in the middle of the night issues. She seems to have some sort of weird internal clock that goes off at 2:00 am and suddenly it’s ‘playtime.’

Last week she went to the vet and got spayed. The poor little thing looked traumatized when we brought her home. She had this look on her face that said, “You will NOT believe what happened to me today!”

But she got over that quickly and was back to terrorizing Comet by latching onto his jowls and making him drag her around. She had a couple of stitches from the surgery and was due to get those removed yesterday. So I let the dogs go outside then loaded Clara up for the trip to the vet.

We’re about a ½ mile down the street and Clara’s in the back of the SUV jumping on the seat then in the floorboard over and over. Next she’s standing on her back legs and clawing the heck out of the console, wanting in the front. I’m driving and can’t pick her up so I’m ignoring her pleas. Suddenly, a terrible smell crawls out from the back area and almost knocks me out. Oh no! Please let her just have gas. She’s frantic to get into the front and I know why. She’s made the rest of the car uninhabitable. Uuuugh. At the next red light I twist around, look behind my seat, and sure enough. She’s left an unwanted present on the floorboard. Yuck.

Dogs may be a man’s best friend, but this ‘friendship’ may kill me.

Anyone want to buy a slightly used SUV? How about a rat/monkey/dog?