Surprisingly, the number one source of the crap I encounter on a daily basis does not come from my daughter or my patients but my two mangy, irritating little dogs. I am not saying they're not completely adorable (because they are), but it's hard to remember this as you're squishing a warm turd with your bare toes. The worse part is, it is not just poop. Over the years, I have come across some of the most horrifying, yet somehow, most hilarious things you can imagine. If you haven't stopped reading yet, I will assume you're not easily grossed out and give you some examples.
My first Yorkie was an evil genius. He was the Einstein of Yorkies. He could perform at least a dozen tricks on command. I had to spell more than 20 words because he knew what I was saying. With this fantastic IQ also came the ability to know exactly how to tick everyone off. You didn't give him a treat on time? Pee on your leg. You try to take a nap when he wants to play? Racquetball to your skull. He frequently found ways to distract me...he would ask for his water bowl to be filled, then I'd turn my back to find out he ate my cheeseburger. There was also an incident with Brian I'm not allowed to write about unless I want to be served with divorce papers tomorrow morning. Despite the many times I wanted to throw him into the wall, Shelby was the best dog who ever existed. There have been very few people who have made me laugh the way that damn dog did.
The first time I knew I was in trouble was when he was only 4 months old. I was working at Dairy Queen when I got a call from my ex-boyfriend. He went to my place to let Shelby out since I was working all day. He opened the back door to find a rainbow smeared across the kitchen floor. Yes, you read that right. Shelby had climbed onto the kitchen table and tried to eat a box of Gobstoppers. You know, the jawbreakers that change color. Except Shelby didn't know you were supposed to suck on them to make them change colors. Instead, he licked them while they rolled across the floor, making yellow, green, red, orange, and purple streaks on every square inch of linoleum in my kitchen. When he got frustrated with the Gobstoppers, he decided to check out the table again--where he found a box of tea bags. He ate the ENTIRE box. I was convinced he was going to die, but all that happened was he didn't sleep (or blink) for the next 15 hours.
A few months later, I came home and couldn't find Shelby. He weighed about 4 pounds, so where could he go right? I had a huge kitchen and I had a gate up between the kitchen and the rest of the house. He was not in the kitchen. I immediately feared the worse--that someone had stolen him. Then I thought maybe a maintenance man let him out. While I am standing there, horrified, here comes a flying 4 pound ball of fur running through the living room and leaping over the 2 foot tall plastic gate. I was so happy to see him...until I saw the living room. The brand new, expensive berber carpet was ripped up in places with little "sprouts" sticking way up from the floor. There were several newspapers torn to shreds, complete with the black ink smeared on the now-destroyed carpet. A flower arrangement had been eaten then vomited up repeatedly throughout the room. Worst of all, my old tv was no longer functional as the cord had been chewed in HALF! Did I mention said tv was still plugged into the wall?
Shelby somehow escaped being electrocuted by the tv and murdered by me for ruining the living room and continued to wreak havoc on my life and house. One time, I picked up my purse & dumped it out on my bed to transfer it to a different purse and along with the lip gloss, pens, and cell phone came a rolling piece of dried up poo! To this day, I am still not sure how a short little dog got that nugget in there since my purse was hanging on a hook well above his height.
When Shelby was 3, he had a serious stomach condition and had to have emergency surgery. It cost so much it took me over 1 year to pay off the bill, but it was worth it. It made me appreciate his sense of humor that much more. And I am happy to say, by paying that bill, I gave him 8 more years to torture me.
Shelby was a brave little dog--unless you presented him with something NOT scary. He would take on Rottweilers, the vet, and the groomer like a champ...but keep wrapping paper rolls away from him please. One day when I was wrapping some Christmas presents, I had one of those giagantic rolls of paper out. When I used the last of the paper, I chased him around the living room with the roll up to my mouth saying "Sheeeeeeelllllllbbbbbyyyyy." He ran and ran until the crap came flying. I accomplished what I thought was the impossible: I literally scared the sh*t out of someone.
Shelby's favorite place to go "bye bye" to was my mom & dad's house. You probably assume it's because his grandparents gave him attention or treats right? Nope! It was because they have a cat, which means they also have a litter box. That dog could eat cat turds like it was his job. It was impossible to keep him from getting upstairs and getting in that box. Every time we visited, their house would end up covered from top to bottom in turds and litter crystals. Which has me wondering why the hell my parents kept inviting him back?
When Shelby was 7, Brian became a part of our family. Shelby had lived alone with me for so many years, he wasn't quite sure what to think about this arrangement. On one hand, he was happy to snuggle up with Brian to watch tv late into the night. On the other hand, he didn't like not having Brian's undivided attention. If Brian tried to play xbox, Shelby would jump at him and "punch" him with his paws until he got up. When that sometimes didn't work, Shelby would bark in increasingly louder intervals until Brian couldn't stand it anymore. If neither of those strategies were successful, Shelby would wait until he established eye contact with Brian, and then piss all over the floor to make it clear he would not tolerate being ignored. They had a love/hate relationship that brought me much amusement.
By the time Shelby turned 8, we introduced Porkchop to the family. Porkchop was a 3 pound miniature pinscher who quickly took over the house. She pounced on Shelby. She followed him around. She stood next to him and flung her back leg across him. He HATED her. It took close to a year for him to accept we weren't sending this creature back to whatever planet she arrived from. Finally, he decided to make friends. His definition of a friend was someone to help him in his pursuit to tear up things and slowly chip away at his mother's sanity.
Porkchop has never accepted the fact that she is a miniature
pinscher. She maintains the belief that she is a full grown Doberman. At
20 pounds, this dog is surprisingly quite the hunter. She has caught
moles, rabbits, even birds. I am convinced that most of the appeal in
this hunting is not the catch itself, but in terrorizing me--her mother.
Every time she catches a mole or a bird, she stands at the back door
& flings its dead body into the back door over & over just to
hear me scream. When she finally gave up, she would always pass the corpse on to Shelby, who would refuse to come in the house or drop the offending animal.There have been more times than I care to count that I have had the living crap scared out of me when I've round the corner to find an unidentified gnawed on little body. I have found a mole so badly decomposed I thought it was a leaf, until I went to pick it up, at which point I screamed so loudly I am sure the entire street heard. I have found more than one bird, guts hanging out, strewn across the hallway. I have even heard commotion from across the house, only to arrive to see two dogs fighting over a chewed up worm they somehow glued to the wall.
They have always been smart enough to know if they are going to do something bad they need to do it in the other room...but they have never been smart enough to figure out how to do it quietly. One night, I heard a loud noise that sounded like a rock being kicked all over the hard wood floors. I went into the bedroom to find Porkchop and Shelby fighting over something. I broke it up (getting bit in the process), and reached over to pick up the rock. Wrong--not a rock! It was a FROZEN TURD!
Shelby continued to terrorize me until the day he died. He was still turning over trash cans to get q-tips the week that he got sick. I was devastated when I lost him, but it was time. He had a long life for a dog plagued with so many health issues. Porkchop took it harder than anyone. Night after night, she would stare at us and cry. She wouldn't lay down and sleep--just cry and pace. I had to have another Yorkie. Not just because I needed another one but because I thought Porkchop would get over her loneliness.
Enter Chewy. It was just like Shelby and Porkchop all over again. Porkchop hated Chewy on sight. She did everything she could to avoid him. That only lasted a few weeks until he learned to jump on the couch. She finally learned to accept him. He still lays on her back several times a day and chews on her ears. In a way, it's pretty fitting she is getting back what she put Shelby through for 4 years.
Chewy has taken over Shelby's job as partner in crime. Porkchop does the killing, he does the eating and/or sneaking the corpse into the house.
Chewy is much different than Shelby though. He is also very smart and very vindictive. However, he is more affectionate. Shelby was not a lap dog. He liked to sit by people, not on them. And most of the time, he preferred the floor where it was cooler. Chewy wants to be right on top of everyone. Loves to be held and gives "nibbles" to everyone. Which is why he enjoys bringing me "presents" even more than Shelby did.
The night before a big nursing test, I was in bed studying when I reached over to grab my notes, and almost put my hand on a SLUG! Apparently Chewy thought he would bring me an early Christmas gift! I can handle poop, puke, vomit, etc but a slug in my bed is where I draw the line.
Have I mentioned Brian has to pick up all this stuff? Like I said, I will handle baby or adult messes, but I don't do decomposed mole corpses or bird stomachs. Brian has received many calls at work with me shrieking about something the dogs have done. Or he has come home to find the dogs locked outside with me hiding inside. Somedays he can barely get through the door before I'm telling him "look what YOUR dog did."
I was really worried about handling two dogs with a new baby. But it's honestly been great. They are still a pain in my butt, but they love Mallory. It has been fun watching her grow up with them.
Update:
I wrote this blog back in 2011, when Mallory was one. For some reason, I never published it. I guess that my intention was to add more to the story. Trust me, there is a lot more I can say about these dogs.
However, in the years have passed (as I have horribly neglected my blog), two more little beauties have come along. Not puppies this time...I am talking about Eliza and Juliet. Having three kids 4 and under along with two high maintenance dogs just wasn't going to work out.
Luckily, I found a new home for Chewy in a friend from my hometown. Chewy went to live with Danielle and her family in the fall of 2014, before Juliet arrived. It seems things are working out well, and I am so thrilled for him. And Porkchop seems thrilled to be the only dog. The competition has left the building!
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Apparently since Shelby & Chewy both had such strong personalities, we overlooked the fact that Porkchop is an a**hole. In the weeks Chewy has been gone, Porkchop has suddenly become my biggest source of stress (which is saying a lot considering the amount of young children I have). She has barked nonstop, eaten out of the trash, asked to go in & out (for more barking) at all hours of the night, and most recently--she has taken to chewing on all the kids clothes and stuffed animals. So far, Mallory's dirty panties seem to be the most delectable snack.
As big of a pain as she has become, she is almost 9 years old, so she is sticking around. The kids love her. One of Eliza's favorite activities is lint rolling the dog. Brian started doing this to eliminate some of the loose hair in the house, and now Eliza can't get enough.
So for now, between two kids in diapers, my messy patients, and my increasingly senile Min Pin, I'll remain up to my elbows in sh*t. I'm back by popular demand. Keep watching for more classic quotes, which have been a work-in-progress since I was pregnant with Eliza, and a best of Mallory Renee collection. Thanks for enjoying my sh*tty life as much as I do!
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