A Weird Dog Saga: My Devious Plan Gone Horribly Wrong
I guess we were lucky growing up. Every dog my family owned was just plain good. Obedient, listening well, came when called, laid down when asked, house trained, never escaped from yard. Just plain old good. In fact, I secretly used to think people with bad dogs had somehow corrupted their essential good nature and somehow tarnished their spotless character through some terrible family behavior.
Similarly, I also owned a few cats, same story. Came when called, happy to see me, sat on my lap, generally cats who demonstrated traits you want to make you want to own a cat – well behaved virtually every minute of every day.
…Having owned three dogs and two cats growing up I couldn’t wait to have my own faithful companions first chance I got with my own family…
The rub was, I married a woman who was allergic to cats and dogs. Completely dashing my hopes on the rocks of broken dreams. I went along with this arrangement, resigning myself to my fate of dogless adulthood. Dutifully going about my lonely days and empty lapped evenings without one pant, bark, meow or purr for some time.
When we first got married we lived in a condo so the lack of a pet did not particularly bother me. We had not had our kids yet, I traveled more, we had movie nights, date nights! Hey, who needs a furry friend under these circumstances right?
Fast forward a few years, we have our first son, then our second, we move to a larger home, then a home larger still. I am starting to notice my wonderful date nights and world travel supplanted with trips to-day care and endless sporting events. Now the absence of man’s best friend started to pull at my heart-strings. However I am still the dutiful husband, honoring his wife’s “condition” she cannot be around any animal.
Then it happened…my wife decides to get, not one but two cats, she’s on the “Pet Finder” website at a fevered pitch and will not stop looking until she finds the purrfect (see what I did there?…still got it)
Long story short, she looks until she finds two healthy young Abyssinian cats, brother and sister, “King George” and “Queen Sophia” – they apparently have a custom of naming pure breed cats with unusual names.
Anyway, I negotiate the treaty with the Russian cat breeder who turns out to be very nice. We go to Brooklyn and we meet our new cats “George” and “Sophie”. My wife being from Europe immediately announces we are going to let these two, pure breed, cats run free outside, like we live on a farm.
Her rational “we do this in Europe” my defense “Well in America We Don’t!” does not seem to have the same weight in terms of decision-making power.
I am happy to have a pet anyway. The cats turn out to be really great and we all love them. They are the best cats ever. These cats are weird though, in that they come like a dog when called. So they are God knows’ where out in the suburban wilderness, you call their names and they come running, literally running to our door.
…George and His Benefactor Gabi…
Don’t get me wrong, I love the cats like everyone else in the house but after twice weekly visits to the allergists to have cats (by my wife) I am feeling a little slighted.
I bring up the topic of dogs to test the proverbial waters. “Hey how about we get a dog,?” I say casually.
My wife meets this comment with an incredulous look. Immediately firing back, you know I am allergic to animals!
Because I’m so mature the fact my wife was willing to get shots, for three years, to grant her own cat owning wish, has virtually no effect on my mood or behavior what so ever.
Just kidding, I like many men, am a man-child, who wants his own way too. I’m now holding on to my man’s best friend resentment daily. It is like a simmering pot, eventually this is going to boil over it is just a matter of time. I know this in the depths of my heart.
I wait a few months, with the disaplin of a monk. Then ask another way “Hey what if we got a dog and we have a dog house in the yard?” She quickly shots me down with the fact we live in the northeast.
I persist, undaunted “we can keep the dog downstairs only…” again my wife looks at me with a look of disbelief and say’s you don’t think I am going to endure another three years of those painful shots just to get a dog, do you?”
I say “of course not” because I am really mature and logical…Just kidding, I am in no way on-board with this logic and do, in fact expect her to do this.
I realize in this moment my more base childish nature will eventually win this battle. I will use my normal strategy of doing something I know, full well, my wife will hate, apologizing profusely and groveling for forgiveness”
Now I know my wife, she is a hard-headed Hungarian with a memory like an elephant. She will never let me live this down if I take this leap.
She can also sniff out my schemes, like no one I have ever known. I need to exercise the discipline of the Samurai and be stealthy as a ninja.
I decide to lay low, I have been talking dogs too much, she is starting to give me the Elliot Ness interrogation look. I can see her looking for the bare lightbulb and chair to tie me up in, to beat the truth out of me.
So I am as disciplined as can be. I say nothing for months, then start to hatch my evil dog-buying plans. I should say, my evil dog(s) buying plan.
I spitefully decided if she gets two cats, then by God, I get two dogs too. I am “all-in” with this insane plan now, I have gone 5150 dog buyer now, I just don’t give a shit.
I realize she is going to probably murder me in my sleep for this one. I already pulled this routine with a piano, table saw, 1949 GMC pickup truck. I’m seriously running out of the forgiveness with this particular Hungarian.
I stealthfully acquire a secret list of hypoallergenic dogs off the internet to start to secretly interview my wife. I say to my wife, “Gabi, do you like poodles?, I hear they are really smart, what do you think?”
Immediately she says how much she hates poodles, then lists a dozen reasons poodles are no damn good.
…I lay low again, lying in wait with the next name on my potential dog buying list, next breed…
“Gabi, do you like Schnauzers? I think they’re really cute, what do you think about them?” Gabi immediately has a “Schnauzers are terrible” then recites a list of 12 reasons, adding a personal anecdote about her friend Judy, who had a Giant Schnauzer who literally leaped from the window of her moving car.
Again, with the purity and disapline of a monk, I lay low again and meditate on this. I am waiting for the next name on my list, to spring my trap. If I go to fast with the questioning “Sherlock” is going to sniff my plan out.
So I wait….finally getting down to literally the last breed on the list, Basenji’s “the barkless dog”. They do not bark, at all, they never bark in fact, they hardly make any noise at all, ever. They are just the right size and they are good looking.
I ask, “Gabi, do you like these dogs?” eureka, I hit pay dirt! “Yes I do (she says emphatically), they’re really pretty”
Literally, five minutes later I’m in our spare room, frantically searching for basenji breeders. I’m on a mission from God, to get these damn dogs. I am so ready!
I don’t want to take any chances, this operation is going to be found out, my palms are sweaty, thinking about my wife interrogating me. I will crack under pressure, I know this, name rank and serial number only.
So it goes like this, I find a breeder who has great dogs. I make some excuse to go on a southern business trip down and I make the run to South Carolina.
When I say this breeder was in the back woods, I am insulting the people who live in the back woods. This place in really in the boondocks. I go down an unpaved road for miles, met by stares that say “you’re not from around here are you boy?” to pick up the dogs.
I realize I am truly in crazy town when the dog breeders husband starts telling me about how they opened the farmstead when they realized the Illuminati were going to take over America. I decided, maybe it was time for me to go. Before I ended up in a ditch somewhere as a suspected Illuminati sympathizer.
So I get the dogs, they are cute as you like, they really do not bark, but they literally are the worst dogs ever.
My wife is as hot as a firecracker and really not happy with me. To compound matters, these dogs are digging out of the yard, literally every day, running the town. They never come when called, they listen if they want to and if they don’t like what you’re saying, forget it. They come in if they feel like it, when it is sunny. They hate getting their feet wet, so if it rains they hide in their dog house, then come inside to pee on the rug.
When they are not peeing on the rug, they are eating the furniture. So far, one couch, two Ethan Allen arm chairs, the piano bench (yes that piano – the ask forgiveness piano is actually dog chewed, by the SDK forgiveness dogs)
But we do love them, despite the fact my Dog’s act like cats and my cats act like they’re dogs.
…This is my little girlfriend Lily, my favorite of all…I tell myself she feels remorse for her misdeeds
This photo was taken moments before the devil took my pencil or a sock, or some other damn thing she decided to eat. No matter how many times I tell her, no matter whether I scream and yell or just try to appeal to her better nature, this dog is literally the worst pet I ever had.
She has escaped from the yard so many times, I can’t count. Her brother is equally cute and equally bad. They are now about 6 years old and they are now (mostly) house trained, they (kind of) don’t frantically chase the cats.
Charlie, Lily’s brother, is named after my Uncle Charlie, who ironically is a man that lived almost 100 years and I can think of nothing he did wrong his whole life
Progress report on these two…
They are mostly, sort of, not eating the woodwork anymore, and they eat (less) furniture and fewer pencils. We’re on the 8th Sony play station remote.
Lily has eaten so many pencils and so much paper, I swear she has a Russian novelist living in her stomach, working on his next great opus. But despite it all, we love them.
At the end of the day, bad dogs are better than 90% of most people I know and hell, they don’t bark, so I have to count my blessings – the funny thing is, even my wife now loves the dogs and they sit with her on the couch while she says how much she hates them and is still mad.
But I am still asking for forgiveness – only this time I have dogs to ease my pain and suffering!
How can you stay mad at this face?
My boy Charlie, the son who never gives me any lip, this guy is as silent as a monk on a sacred vow of silence!
Andrew-Walker.Co 
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