Now I remember why I don't have dogs

Now I remember why I don't have dogs..

They poop.. and they pee and they whine ..

Previously on: Why I don't have dogs..

When I was married, my daughter and I wanted to adopt a miniature grey hound. My husband said there would NEVER be a dog in his house. Well, I could understand that, since when we entered the hallowed marriage thing, we brought a cat with us, he already had two and then when one was thrown out in traffic, we rushed to adopt it, couldn't because it had to be healed and stuff, but we fell for a cat that kept trying to claw at us from its cage.

Well, we thought it was cute, sadly, that was all this cat wanted to do: claw us. Then a friend had a beautiful cat called 'Pumpkin' that her mother had, but when mama passed away, the daughter was so allergic that her eyes swelled shut just getting this guy to us for us to watch and help find a home. We renamed him "Punkin Thomas' which sounded more manly than the original woosie name.

Then we adopted 'Dweezel' the Hemingway cat with all the toes and then a friend of ours gave us 'Kit' who was a little bitty thing, who went out and got pregnant by a HUGE cat, had three babies about the same size she was. My daughter birthed all the kitties at the tender age of about 12 and between that and at the age of about four helping to take the staples out of my stomach after a hysterectomy, she was on her way to a medical career.

One newly-birthed white cat was huge with a pampas grass tail (of the three Kit had, he was the only one that lived..) My husband, in all of his vast creativity named him 'Whitey'.

Oh, we'd also adopted a pig we named Kirby after we saw the movie, "Babe", but when he got so large that when I'd head for the kitchen for any reason, he'd knock us all over beating us to the punch in hopes that we'd drop food on him, we had to send him to be adopted by a place that promised that he'd go and live with lots of other piggies in a fabulous place that they never told us the location of. .. we hope he lived a great and full life after that.

In the middle of all of this animal adopting, there was never talk of bringing in a dog. It was verboten, a no-way-Jose sort of thing, and all was right with the world.

One day, in the middle of August (and this is Florida, so you know it was HOT HOT HOT..) the man is looking for a blanket. I was on the computer, in the middle of a great mental masterpiece of some sort when I came back to earth and noticed the rustling around in the linen closet, in the garage, in the clothes closet, under the bed and in all the drawers. As my eyes regained focus on my surroundings, I asked what he was looking for. And of course, the answer that I got was, "A blanket."

"Uhh.. for what?"

"The Dog." Ahh.. the dog. Ok. And I went back to my typing and whatever I was creating at the time. Shortly thereafter, my head snapped up and what he'd told me sunk in. A DOG????? What the???

Well, it seems that when he went out that morning, something drew him to the back yard. I never knew he even went to the back yard. I published magazines and in exchange for advertising, we had a yard guy.. HE went into the back yard and kept our lawn looking so good, it was an erotic experience for me just to look out at our miniscule acreage and see how beautifully well-tended it was. Between that and my other drugs of choice: Food and great books, I was a VERY contented woman.

But I digress.. the man had found a PUPPY in the back yard. She was not all that big, totally starved and had feet the size of dinner plates. Holy crap. He was holding and rocking his beast, declaring love for her (that he'd never gotten that excited about to declare to me, his wife) and that she'd never have to worry about a home or food again (ok, well he did declare that to me, but now it looked very suspicious in the 'maybe he thinks I'm a pet' mode). Who the hell WAS this man??? And this thing was going to grow up to be the size of a small horse! And smell like DOG. Ugh… no.

My adamant 'no way Joses' fell on deaf ears. Damn it. So, Ginger (since she had copper colored fur or hair or whatever dogs have) joined our merry menagerie. Oh, did I mention that we had an aviary of cool birds that chirped all morning long (I love that sound): 2 cockatiels (Storm and Key ~ Key learned the Andy Griffith theme song and then wrote his own concert around it. Storm was a girl who was just generally pissed at the world and ignored the concert); we also had 2 non-descript parakeets, which is why there is no description other than one was yellow and the other was blue); and a bunch of little finch things all in 3 cages denoting their genus. And the cats loved to lie between the cages and flick their tails and listen to the concerts with little cat-like looks of 'wow, this is a great life.. yawn'.

So, here comes this stupid dog. The man originally took her out every day (which totaled about three days in all, then my daughter took over for about two days and I never took over at all – not my dog/project) up until a new computer game came out. Then the dog was inside all day long. At that point, he designated the aviary as the dog poop room. And that's not the worst part (although some of you neat freaks might have already established several worst parts, wait! There's MORE!)

Ginger kept running out the door whenever anyone came or went. I guess having already tasted the outdoors, she grew bored with the a/c and the man yelling to his game people, "Suck on a flame strike M.F (fill in the blanks here)" and ignoring all of the rest of us. So, Ginger set out to have her own adventures without him. And from one of those adventures, he was too late in getting her neutered since a new game had come out, (I can only brow beat so much. I'm only one woman), she came home with child/children/pups.

Upon the glorious day of the birth of Ginger's litter, I returned home from being in town and picking up my daughter from school to find the dog up on my BRAND NEW FUTON, the man on the computer, and puppies and dog birthing and all sorts of crap spewing out on MY BRAND NEW FUTON. It must have been my ear-piercing scream and slamming of the front door that brought him out of his 'suck on a flame-strike' mode and bring his attention to the situation at hand on MY BRAND NEW FUTON.

At that point, he looks at the situation, blinks back to reality, is excited that he's winning the game and there is a miracle of birth happening right in front of him, and then he runs to the linen closet, gets out ONE OF MY BRAND NEW TOWELS and sort of shoves it up under her nether regions that's spewing the above-mentioned birthing crap .. and goes back to his game with a 'sorry honey! But I'm in the middle of a situation here'… yeah, he looked pretty good for a man that close to death and I DON'T mean on the computer game. Butthead.

Well, the old girl had about 8 or so kids. We took pictures, he took the pictures to work and throngs of his postal-worker-mate-guys came and took almost all the butt-headed dogs away. But wait! There's more! Until they could take them, that meant that they needed to stay with their precious mama for SIX WEEKS! And of course they needed to stay on something soft and comfortable, LIKE MY GRAMMA'S FREAKING HAND-APPLIQUED ANTIQUE QUILT! But wait! There's MORE!

When all the little guys pee'd and pooped and made a mess, the man decided that he'd surprise me and clean up! So, he gathered the quilt together, shook it out ON THE FLOOR, and tossed it, WITH BLEACH into our clothes-eating washer and matching clothes-melting dryer! He had his sad, "Honey, I'm sorry" face on upon gathering up all the little formerly brightly colored once-all-together-in-an -artisticially-arranged-design pieces that were now shriveled sort of white things with melted and burned places on them. BUT WAIT! THERE'S SO MUCH MORE!

When he dumped all the little, stinky baby puppy poops on the carpeting, that we ended up ripping out and tossing to the curb (much to our neighbors dismay as the winds changed direction.. down-wind was always relative out where we used to live..) he used my NEW $300 HEAVY DUTY COMMERCIAL VACUUM CLEANER to suck all the fragrant poopies up!.. but wait! There's MORE!!!!

He fell in love with the littlest runt of a puppy.. totally retarded on so many levels (not sure if I'm talking about the man or the baby dog here). Ok, the man became retarded too when we saw this puppy. And the puppy himself is also retarded. He WAS cute, like a little polar bear with an orange/ginger back end and tail. But one of the most stupid dogs I've ever seen in my life. Andrew still lives in the house with his mother and the cats and the man.

Now, being allergic to animals, all of this seriously had, in the six or nine years we were married (sort of a timeless blur of sneezing, swollen eyes and four hits of Primatene mists a day on my part) put a crimp in my love-factor for this man, the house and the local, in-house zoo. So, after a while we congenially (and from my end, with great relief) parted company. We still go to movies together and stuff, but in the five years since we've been apart, I don't think he's ever cleaned the house. Gak and double-gak.

Zip forward six years later: I live in a house with a dog groomer and she baby-sits dogs.

I needed a safe place to stay. An intruder into my life and home decided that he needed to do me harm. Not liking the aspect of dealing with another human being on that level, I figured it was time to blend into the scenery and just find a quiet, easy-going place to live. Henceforth, into my life re-popped up Linda, a lady friend of mine from the past. We'd been acquaintances for about 6 years and had re-acquainted and she mentioned she had a quiet, safe, off the beaten path room to rent. EUREKA!! This could work! Up until I walked into her home the first time. A BIG dog lived there too.. a shepherd. And I was only five feet into the front door when my eyes swelled shut, I was wheezing and breaking out in a rash.

We then went out into the fresh air to a great swimming place and discussed the possibility of my moving in. Seeing what the dander did to me, she apprised me of the fact that she was re-doing her house and had already intended to tear up the carpet and put in tile. So, she asked me to return the next weekend after having done the carpet removal thing and see if I could handle the house after that. I walked in cautiously, was there for several hours without a sneeze! YES! And I moved in the next weekend and have been here about a year.

Now, about 5 months ago, a friend of hers decided to divorce her husband and since she could only take one dog to her new apartment, she brought a little black pug to come and live here. This was ok, once I got used to her looking at me and making snoring sounds. Now I snore like a freight train going through a tunnel, but this dog that weighs about 10 lb has me beat. And she loves coming into my room (this is MY room, thus, the NO DOG ZONE) and falling asleep standing up. Then she wakes up, lowers her head to one of my shoes and goes back to sleep. At that point, I click the volume up on my tv to compensate for her exuberant snoring.

Now, what really pissed me off was when my housemate went on vacation for a week and I had to deal with the dogs. Because this little weasel needs psychiatric help dealing with abandonment issues, she'd come to my room, where I keep the door closed, and pee and poop on the throw-rug in front of my door. Sometimes she did it in my bathroom, but at least I could see the poop nuggets on my light-colored bathroom floor.. I just never saw them in the dark on the floor on the WAY to the bathroom. Slipping going into the door in a nearly total sleepwalking experience, often woke me up. Waking me up in the middle of the night, having to hike my foot up to my waist and washing off the poop and THEN having to clean up the slid-in poop REALLY pissed me off along with the waking me up thing.

I searched the house for something to block her coming to my little end of the house and I located a folding, metal plant stand. HOW CLEVER! I said to myself. So I laid it down, only a little over a foot tall at that point, she's about that tall as well! This could work! So, I covered it with a light colored towel, and drug out my purple Christmas lights to illuminate it so, incase I needed to go into the main part of the house I wouldn't trip over it myself.

So, I'm sitting in my room, my housemate comes in to tell me something and behind her is the pug. WHAT THE….????? "How'd SHE get in here?" I quietly queried. "Well, you know she leaps up into the lounge chair to sleep, this was a small leap for her." CRAP! "Well, maybe she'll forget to come and poop in this end of the house." I hoped. "Right." Linda said and having asked her question, turned and left, the pug trailing behind her and I heard her little feet hit the floor as she flew like Flicka over the purple-lit doggie steeple-chase barrier. CRAP!

Two more poop nights and when my friend, Vera, and I went to Wally World (Walmart, for those of you not knowing the 'hip talk' used nationwide) and went to the baby department (never again.. that's too many babies and moms .. babies upset, moms ignoring them and having a coffee klatch, without the coffee, jamming the aisles) and found a baby gate for about $10 and I brought it home.

I installed this gate (only partially installed because there is base-board trim-work and a wall and the gate doesn't adjust to lock to both… CRAP!) and put the light-colored towel over it and draped the purple Christmas lights over it. Wow, the little creep SURELY can't jump that high! And I was right, only neither can I. And neither can Linda on a bad day if she needs to come back to my room for any reason. CRAP!

So, here I am, working out like a fiend, deep knee bends, jogging place, toe-touches just to lift my freaking leg over the damned gate to get to the other part of the house, which also houses the kitchen. CRAP!

Well, Linda went on a cruise this last week, so I was in charge of taking the two mutleys for their morning and evening poop-fests. I had to alter my life twice a day and although that might not be a problem of five minutes twice a day for some, it slowly eroded my love and joy for dogs, which was about non-existant before, reaching totally non-existant proportions since then.

Every morning for 8 days, I'd throw water on my sleep hair, quickly go to the bathroom myself, and throw my first leg over the gate, hang onto the wall and try to get my hind leg high enough not to snag the gate and totally pitch forward onto the concrete floor. Fear of actually having to land hard and then drag myself off the ground was WAY too much to think about just out of a sound sleep to wade through sand to have one dog poop and pee immediately and the pug have to say hello to every freaking blade of grass till she found THE BEST ONE to stop, squat and drop on or next to. And that was just to pee.. she repeated it soon after for the poop section of her day.

And I'd lose my train of thought and stare off at.. something .. nearly waking myself up snoring standing up, when I'd realize the beasts had woven their leashes around me like a may pole. CRAP! Then I have to unweave myself and guide the weasels back to the front door. Oh, did I mention that if I touch a pet of any sort, I break out in big welts.. Dog sitting has been a many-faceted experience..

The Dog Whisperer.

Linda got back Saturday morning. She had a date Saturday night that lasted through Sunday, when she and the date had to be on a private boat at 10 am in Marco.. my unholy dog incarceration continued a day longer than my excitement level for the task.

So, I drug my butt up AGAIN on my day off at 6, grabbed my leg and staggered over the gate, put the damned leashes on and thought, this is the LAST time!!! She'll be home this eve for SURE!!!! So, after I got back in with the weasels dropping their gifts all over my side of the house.. right under my window.. (I stood there in many a morning stupor in the near light and thought about that .. that I should take them somewhere other than where their delightful fragrance could waft into my room, but then forgot about it as soon as I thought about it and the deeds were done.. guess I was just grateful they stopped, squatted and dropped to be that concerned about WHERE..)

I was basking in the knowledge that I, the Dog Whisperer, was hanging up the leashes for the last time when Linda called later in the day while I was shopping with Vera asking what time I'd be home because DORIAN (I call him Damian, like the devil child in The Omen) was coming over at 5 and she'd forgotten about it and could I be there to greet him.

Now, Damian, er Dorian is a black standard poodle, about the size of a German shepherd.. has been fixed but has no clue that it happened, so he's still humping air and going around in a circle in the middle of the floor all day long. He's a total waste of dog fur, in my opinion, but I'm not his doting, adoring parents.. sheesh. And when he's not going in circles, he's agitated if you tell him to sit down and SHUT UP! And pees on a wall, the couch, the little dog.. it just dribbles out of him in his fear/panic/excitement/breathing .

Luckily, I'd already taken the other two out previous to Dorian's arrival, so all I had to do was let him in the house (I'd crated the other two by Linda's suggestion) and he started agitating the two in the crate. Whining, Howling Banshees comes to mind in regards to the wailing they put up. So, brandishing newspapers (also under Linda's suggestion) I waved it at Dorian, who proceeded to pee where he stood in fear, then turned, ran through it and went into tiny tailspin circles in the living room. The other two dogs just looked at me from the crate grate with their eyes glittering in the kitchen light. I could feel them flipping me off in their minds.

After threatening to find even MORE newspapers in a very loud voice, I dragged my legs over the darned gate and went to my room and shut the door, hoping I'd find dog fur slippers already made by non-dog appreciating little elves by the time I got back. No luck. The ruckus started again.

I called Linda and I think she could tell by the message that my Dog Whispering days were over and I was turning in my Give a Damn about the dogs when I said just that in my message to her, since she didn't immediately answer the phone. Little did I know at that time that the crab boat they were in to go out in to the gulf blew something mechanical and they were having to nurse it slowly back to shore.

Had I known that and the POSSIBLE thought that they'd be lost at sea, needing Coast Guard to find them after four days, my 'get your ass back home NOW' vibes would have been much stronger. But I do feel that even with the actual current strength of those vibes at the moment, the diesel engine angels were working to get the group back to shore to stop an even more heinous situation of my driving away in the car with the front door left open. I'd then arrive back at the house with a surprised look on my face when I came back three days later finding either all three dogs gone, or there waiting for me, pissed because I hadn't filled their dog dishes.

At 10 pm Linda finally got home. The dogs were alive and my door shut, not wanting to know about blood shed or rampant peeing throughout the house.. my watch was over. They were all alive. I did my job. The Dog Whisperer was retired.

I got a scratch on my door.. Linda's way of knocking.. and when I opened it, got a huge hug of thanks from her. "You did great, thanks SO much! I owe ya." (she has NO clue) So, I went to bed, not to sleep, but to have heart palpitations all night thinking about what would have happened if she HADN'T come home by morning.. two dogs I can sort of handle. Three.. I refuse. No-way-Jose. Don't make them hear about me on the morning news.. So I got up this morning, went in for a shower, said to hell with it, my eyes are too tired, I'm going back to bed.

Thus ends my Dog Days of September.. October is a brand new month. Amen and good night..

Bekki J.Shanklin, Copyright 2006, from her "Thinking all the time" series