I never should have been a Pet Owner

My dog looked at me this morning with condemnation in his eyes. The look said, “I hope your daughter comes home soon since you forgot to feed me again”. I should never have been a pet owner. This may be a quality the Manicured Dog Groomer saw when I was desperately applying for the dog washing job.


Buddy is an old 100lb cranky Newfoundland, with the skinny legs of a Collie, who pretends to be hard of hearing. He can hear me opening a cheese wrapper in the kitchen and will come bouncing in, but tell him to get off the couch and he looks at you like he has no idea what your talking about. And just try to get him in the back of a truck when he‘s decided to stay Home or at the Lake.

Last week he got into a tussle with a Racoon or something and ended up at the vet’s office getting his fat head shaved and $200.00 worth of stitches, I should have just put him to sleep… I reminded him of this after he ate 4 of my daughters chickens and I was having to use my entire body weight to push him out of the chicken coop.

I am just way to neurotic to have pets in my house. Pet Hair. Pet Toys. Slobbery Food Dishes. Muddy paw prints on the glass door because I forgot to let him in. Yuck. Not to mention what a pile of dog poo or throw up will do to my psyche. Thank God cream colored carpet can handle my incessant bleaching every time it happens.

A couple years ago my youngest had called me at work and said the Dogs were sick. I’m like.. Ok.. So deal with it. She’s like 12 and to my knowledge can handle a little Poo. I am at work and have plans to head to the gym. I’ve got skinny somewhere inside and I’m going to find it dammit. Three phone calls later, I’m screaming at her to cowboy up and take care of the situation as I know that if I miss one night at the gym it will result in a 30 day absentee on my part cuz that is just how I am. After repeated begging attempts and phone calls,  I finally got a sense of her urgency when she asked what she should use to clean it up… the mention of a shovel set off all of my alarms. When I got home I was greeted by my poor sobbing daughter standing in the middle of the room with a shovel in one hand and a roll of paper towels in the other. And shit everywhere. Everywhere. I could not in my worse nightmares imagine such a thing. On the couches. On the walls. The floors. And they didn’t just hit one level of the house they hit them all. I didn’t know two dogs could even do all that. You could almost see the Odor in the Air. My poor baby girl was standing there right in the middle of it, not having a clue where to start. And the Mother of the Year Award goes to ….ME. That was my first carpet shampooing with straight bleach.

That very same daughter has turned into the Dog Whisperer. She has trained her unruly crazy Yellow Lab, who quite frankly is like having an elephant on crack running around your house, into a very nice and possibly loveable dog. She truly is amazing and gifted when it comes to animals.

As for Me. When my dog ‘Goes to the Light’ I am not getting another one.