I mentioned a while back that my husband's birthday is coming up. Actually, it's on the 31st of this month.
Let my back up a ways now. When Erik was young, his dad was a total workaholic, but in sudden misplaced spurts of wanting to actually parent his kids, he would bring home a dog. After bringing home the dog, Dad would totally forget about it, as would the kids, and eventually, Mom would take over care of said dog, until she lost patience with the whole thing and took it to the pound.
So, as an adult, Erik has always wanted a dog--to make up for the lack of normal dog-ownership of his childhood. I've poo-pooed the idea for 10 years now. Yes, a while back we took in my parents old dog, Buddy, a border collie who was on his last leg, while they built a house--but really Buddy was more like a piece of hand-me-down furniture than a dog. But I'm doing something very foolish tonight. I'm bringing home a puppy for Erik for his birthday.
I love my husband and he's a great dad, good worker, etc., but tends to see the glass as basically half empty. Because of some work situations and the situation with my step-son, I've watched the joy drip out of his life bit by bit. A couple of weeks ago, while I was driving Janzen home to Salt Lake, I said out of the blue, "Why don't we get your dad a puppy for his birthday?" Of course, Janzen was all over the idea--he's an 11 year old boy after all.
So--I started looking in the paper, the pet store, checking with friends, and trying to find a great puppy for Erik. He hasn't ever wanted a papered fancy dog--but mentioned once that he'd like to have a golden retriever to run with. So on Wednesday, Janzen and I were taking the car to the car wash, and picked up a "Pioneer Shopper"--an independent cornucopia of classified ads for Southern Utah. Looking for a pygmy goat? No problem! Want to work from home and make up to $2000 an day? It's in there! So, while sitting there together, the car being blasted by the high pressure jets of the car wash, Janzen reads out loud to me, "Golden Retriever/Border Collie puppies. Call for details." Now we all loved Buddy--even though he was old as sin, and as a young dog, he was smart as a whip and great to be around. So this seemed like the perfect puppy. We called--they gave us the details, and to make a long story short, are meeting Janzen and I tonight in the parking lot of our Super Wal-Mart with a puppy.
Christ.
Janzen and I have sneakily purchases puppy stuff and hid it. I bought a book called the "Everything Puppy Book" which mostly scared me. Anyone know about this "crate training?" It seems kind of hard core to me.
Plus, Sophie already pees all over the place, and tears the house to pieces.
Ok. Breath. It will be ok. It will be fun. It will make Erik happy. It's only a puppy.
Today's best thing about being a mom:
Sophie should be taking a nap, but she just came out of her room, naked except for her princess pull-ups and her new tap shoes. She LOVES her new tap shoes. The dance class was mainly a success. I don't know how thrilled I am with the teacher, but I stayed and watched, and Sophie sat in my lap for a while, and participated a little, and dragged me out to dance with her a couple of times. They're learning a little dance to "5 little monkeys jumping on the bed" which is cute. I was hoping to see more creative movement and less "everybody stand on your spot and tap your left toe" stuff, but we'll see. Anyhoo--Sophie in tap-shoes is a pretty sweet sight.
Today's worst thing about being a mom:
I'm beginning to think that I will never ever be allowed to sleep in again. This morning she climbed in bed with me at 6:30. Not too bad, but I remember the days (3 years ago) when I had a day off of sleeping until 9:00, reading until 10:00, wandering in and having breakfast. Shit and Fuck. Here she is again. I guess it's going to be a no nap day.
6 comments:
Girl, you have got to stop how to raise things books. Remember the toal panic and paranoia you had with Sophie? What if she has 18 fingers, what if she's blind, what if she has two heads. Same thing. Puppies have been surviving for years now. It'll be ok and you have a beautiful backyard that is totally gated off. If it gets crazy, put him out there. All will be well, deep cleansing breaths. Find your happy place. There ya go.
Oh My God. I can hardly realize what I just read. Wow. Dude.
I hope you're going into this realizing that you're totally going to have to train this dog yourself. Save yourself the stress and resign to this fact right now. You and Erik and Goldencollie will all get along much better than way.
Good Luck is all I can really say. And, I hope Erik realizes how much this shows you love him.
Every vet or puppy expert I've ever talked to advocates crate training. It's like their own room and they love it. I tried for months to convince Husband to try it but he feels like it's a cage and didn't want to isolate the girls. So we have two dogs and at least 1 cat in bed with us every night. Which as you can imagine can be irritating. And once a year or so we come home to an accident. It took a few months to housebreak but I promise you'll get there. And throwing them outside when it gets overwhelming is absolutely great advice. You can do that with baby's too right? LOL. You'll be a great puppy mom!
I know nothing about puppies except they are cute. And a puppy has to be the most exciting gift ever to receive so I'm sure he'll love it.
In response to Amanda K's comment--Erik and Janz are both being incredibly attentive to Jimmy. I think Erik is going to make an excellent puppy dad.
:)
I love dogs. absolutely love them. we crate trained maggie, our corgi, and then got rid of the crate when she was housebroken. she rarely has accidents, and when she does, it's because we didn't let her out when she sat by the door.
and of course, she's trent's dog. and trent does exactly one thing with her - feeds her dinner. when we remind him.
Post a Comment