My failures....

I have had several failures in my lifetime. Too many to count really....but the failures I am referring to here are the dogs....and cats.

Growing up we always had animals. My mom loves them. Always has, always will. Two dogs and one cat. That seems to have been the total for the most part over the years. Now, there were times when we had two dogs, seven kittens and one angry father, but mostly two dogs and one cat. Chiffon was mine for the most part. I loved her....I would follow her, she would sleep on my chest and on windy nights you could hear me yelling for her out the front door...."here shifty, shifty, shifty"...(sometimes my mom and I would accidentally leave out the f....:) ).

When Jon and I got married we had assumed we would have the typical american couple thing going on....a few kids, a dog and a cute house in the burbs. Well, we definately got the kids thing going on and the cute house in the burbs was a go...but what about the dog? For so long we didnt even consider it because we always had a new baby in the house. Then one day when in bed nursing a baby I had a little visitor, which ran right across my pillow and off the bed. That was the end of that, by the end of the next day we had a cat. She ended up being a big pain in the hind quarters. She attacked our feet all night long and was a little skittish. She ended up being a garage cat. Which was ok, she had a warm place to sleep, lots of food and free reign of the yard and neighborhood. I think thats how cats like it if you want my opinion.

We moved from West Jordan to Sandy not too long after that and then we started to talk dog. A friend of ours had some standard poodle puppies and we just had to have one. We brought him home, to our little home, and it took us the better part of a year to come to terms with the fact that there were too many people in our small home and just not enough room for a huge dog. He had to go. Poor Blazer never saw it coming. After a long drawn out feud with some weirdos in Erda, we found him a good home right here in Salt Lake. No more dog.

Then we moved again, this time just around the corner...but funny that the cat, who now loved the nieghbors more than us decided to stay behind. We were petless again. After a brief spell, and several ailing guinea pigs later, we tried the dog thing again.

Lucy was the first. We rescued her and by the end of the first day in our home she was biting Jon and the neighbor kids. 24 hours was all she lasted.

Then it was Piper...she was a mix mut and we had high hopes for her. She was sweet enough, but after a few months she had been nicknamed "hyper Piper" and you can see where this is going...she was gone.

Pixie was my choice. I have always wanted a little dog and thats what I found on KSL. She was a yorkie mix and I liked her well enough. She was cute, she was little, but even the big kids were afraid of her. She was a little demon and only a few months later she was gone. I watched her on KSL and she ended up being sold about 4 times, that I knew of. Poor dog. With her it was the owners that never saw it coming.

Then it was Athena. Boy, I took my time looking for her. I wanted to do it right this time. I watched the ads, picked a dog that was more lazy than hyper and went to the breeder to investigate each and every animal. I liked her...she was our Mastiff. Her parents were huge and kind and even lazy and I loved that. I needed that. For all intents and purposes she was exactly what we needed. She was docile, calm and happy to lay around. She was obedient and happy and never caused us trouble. Only one more problem...I was sick the entire time she was in our home. Four months of laying in bed, coughing, sneezing, fever kind of sick. I went to the allergist and found out that I was allergic to her and nearly everything else on the planet. After finding her an awesome home I got better and was good for a long time. We accepted that the dog thing was not going to happen.

Then came Polly....not a dog. My friend. She had a dog that she had had for the better part of a year. She got this dog after the loss of her American Bulldog because her son was allergic. Well, Ian got sick in May...the kind of sick that landed him in the hospital on oxygen. The doctor questioned Polly and Scott...
"You still have a dog?"
She held her breath...."well, yes, but a hypoallergenic one...so he is ok, right?"
The doctor's face was not happy...
"To an asthmatic there is not such thing as a hypoallergenic dog"

So, we inherited the dog a few months ago. He is ok as dogs go I guess. He is housetrained, he is not so much a puppy anymore, which means that he does not chew and obsess like some puppies can. But there are a few problems. The dog does not really trust the kids so he bites them. But the bigger problem is that Skyler and I have both been sick ever since he got here. Poor Skyler has been on antibiotics twice. Ugh....I think we are destined to never have a dog.

We love dogs, they just dont love us....

"Good dog to good home" will be stamped into my headstone upon my death....