Dogs and Me

I am a relentless person when I want something. Whatever it may be, it consumes me until I get it. I will tell my story of our 2 golden retrievers, Skeet and Hunter. When Nick and I got married 8 years ago, I started my what I like to call "the wear-down process" on Nick. I wanted a dog for our little family of 4. Not just any dog, mind you. I wanted a Golden Retriever. I began talking about it constantly. Nick kept saying no; he wasn't ready for a dog. We both worked too much and the kids wouldn't take care of it. But I kept at him day after day. One Sunday morning when Taylor and Shea were at their dad's house, Nick and I were at Bruegger's Bagel having our coffee. I was perusing the Sunday paper and just so happened to come across the Pet classified. What do you know, an ad for Champion Bloodline Golden Retriever puppys! Let's just go see them, I said with my sweetest, most charming smile I can muster. I saw his shoulders slump slightly in defeat and I knew I had him. We drove out to the middle of nowhere and all the while Nick told me over and over again that we were not buying a dog. We were just looking. I know, I know. Have you ever seen a golden puppy? Have you ever seen 12 of them climbing over each other to get to you? It's enough to bring a hardened criminal to his knees. We fell in love with these little guys. There was one in particular that I really liked, but another one, would not leave me alone. I decided on the one that I wanted and Nick conceded. He wanted him just as badly. The other little boy just would not stay away from me, though. So my husband, the most sensible man in the world, suggested that we buy both males. Hmmm, can we do it? Keep in mind, at the time, we were living in a 1200 square foot bungalow with a postage stamp yard. We decided to put a deposit on the one and talk to our vet to see what the difficulties would be in having 2 puppies. I'm not sure if it was the next day or a couple days later that we were out to dinner for New Years Eve. All I could think about was the little one that we didn't choose. I told Nick we had to get them both and I didn't care what he had to do. So we got them both and brought them home about 3 weeks later. And when I tell you that I was in Heaven, that is no joke. These 2 puppies were so darn cute and fun,  I couldn't get enough of them. They were my new little twin babies.


But......Almost instantly, there were issues. They were up every 1-2 hours whining. Because I treated them like babies, Nick and I were taking them outside every time they whined. We were totally dragging at our jobs over the next several weeks. I think they did that for about 2 months until our vet scolded us and told us we were out of our minds. That ended, but as they got bigger, they got stronger, and naughtier. They were dragging the kids and me down the street on walks, and running away if they got loose. They were eating our furniture and our food in the pantry closet. Nick and I used to take turns coming home for lunch and some days I would walk in to what looked like the after math of a tornado inside our house. Cushions would be over turned with stuffing every where. Half the food in our pantry would be ripped to shreds and food crumbs scattered all over the kitchen and living room floor. The kids most precious toys would be chewed up and completely destroyed. On top of all that, we learned that our "Champion Bloodline" dogs had hip dysplasia.


When we moved into our new house, we thought they would get better because they would have so much room to run around in and outside. It didn't improve at all. It quickly got worse. They left huge claw marks in the drywall by the door about 3 weeks after we moved in. In fact, the builder was still finishing up some last items. (Which was a positive since his workers were able to come right over and fix the walls.) They would jump up to the counters and kitchen table when I wasn't looking to grab whatever food they could snag. One evening when I was cleaning the kitchen, one of them stole a freshly opened container of Country Crock off the dinner table and ate the entire thing. About an hour later, he vomited the entire thing back up in the MIDDLE of our great room carpet. I cleaned it up and scrubbed the heck out of it. But they could still smell the butter and chewed up all the carpet in the area because it smelled like butter. We were in the house for about 5 months and we had a massive hole in the center of our floor. They scratched the wood running up the stairs (a place they were forbidden to go). They scratched our new bedroom furniture from Pottery Barn within a few months of having it. They ate about 10 pounds of candy the evening before Easter so that we had to drive to Walmart and rummage through whatever was left to fill baskets the next morning. All the while trying to get the house ready to entertain our entire family the next day for Easter dinner. There are 100 more things that they did to drive me mad and put a wedge between Nick and me. If only I had written a book about the boys before Marley and Me was published. I would have been a very rich woman.


Isabella had just turned 1, and I was about 3 months pregnant with Nicholas, and feeling like absolute crap. After 5 years, I got on the phone with the breeder and she agreed to take them back. Nick dropped the dogs off the next week and it ended up being one of the hardest things we ever did. We have second guessed our decision almost every day for 3 years. We felt like failures and we felt like we abandoned them. It made me feel like the biggest loser that I couldn't control 2 dogs. It was terrible, terrible, terrible.


Fast forward 2 years. Last summer the kids started bugging us for a dog. We discussed doing some research and finding a breed that we could handle, and then learn how to train a dog. I said I would be ready in 1 year. Nick said NEVER.

About 6 months later, I started looking at different types of dogs and trying to determine what we (mostly I) could handle. I started making it a weekend thing to do with the kids to go visit the puppies at the pet store. Nick would go and play with them but say absolutely not when anyone asked if we could get one. By April, I started really getting serious and happened to find one that I absolutely loved. I was hooked. He was a little dog and had been at the pet store for a long time. He was a mix between a Shitzu and a bichon frise. That's when the maniac came out of me. All I talked about was the puppy. I did research, I called groomers and vets. All my ducks were in a row, and all I had to do was talk Nick into it. The kids promised him that they would help. We promised there would never be poop in the living room or holes in his shoes and scratches in our hardwood dining room floors. He went to the pet store the next day to see the puppy one more time and found that it had been sold the night before. I was devastated. My poor little baby was with another family??? How could that happen?? So I went back to start my process all over again and found this little guy.  

I was on a mission after I saw him. He was similar to the other one, but was a mix between a Lhasa Apso and a Bichon Frise. He was teeny-tiny, weighing in at about 3 pounds. He had an awesome personality and was so darn cute. I made Nick go up to see him a couple days later and I started begging. Before we walked in he told me that if they didn't accept the price the he was willing to pay, we were leaving. I said that I understood, and crossed my fingers. My husband, the major negotiator, got what he wanted and so did the kids and I.


We brought him home on May 1st and after deliberating for about 2 weeks, we named him Giovanni. We call him Gio for short. He is adorable and sweet and as naughty as a 2 year old boy. He and Nicholas are partners in crime.


He loves the water and loves the dirt, and he plays ball like a lab. This is not the froofy dog that I was expecting, and I love it.