Dog

I am not a dog person. Cats, yes. Dogs, no.

Part of this is baggage from my upbringing because we would get these free dogs and never invest much time or effort or money into them and then when they got annoying and chased cars we got rid of them. I say "we" but it certainly wasn't ever my decision. And I still have emotional scars from watching a dog get shot...but not killed until the second shot.

Steven wants a dog. He has proven with Katzie that he can take good care of a pet.

An old man who attended our church for a few months died recently and his family would like to give his dog to one of those nice Mennonite families whose young people sang so nice at the funeral.

So Saturday we piled into the car and went to look at this dog. And it was a DOG. A huge blonde German Shepherd derivative that nearly knocked me over wagging his tail, left blonde hairs and dirt all over us from the waist down, and weighs, the family says, 180 pounds. Dear me, didn't we see lions in Kenya that were smaller than this dog?

Should we get it? Yes, yes, yes, yes, said the kids. Yes? said Paul. Humph, I said. OOOhhh you should, said my friend Rachel and my sister Margaret.

I began extracting promises from the family: feeding, sheltering, grooming, training, and poop-scooping.

I sat down with Paul and told him of my yucky childhood experiences with dogs. He said all the right sympathetic things.

Ok, I said, fine, let's get the dog.

Paul went to the vet and got the dog's records. He is a lot older than we were told. Six years old, already, and in a couple of years is likely to get too old to play.

Paul doesn't think we can set Steven up for that kind of loss, which makes sense, but ach my, now that I went through all those contortions to come to this decision.

"Let's get a puppy!" said Steven.

"NO!" I said. "Not a puppy."

I can see my family winding up for another barrage of convincing arguments. This time I'm holding firm.

Quote of the Day:
"Do fish have eyelashes?"
--Jenny