Yeah, we had a dog. HAD being the operative word.

What I'm Listening To: Listen to the Beat by London Funk Allstars

I looooove dogs. We don't have kids -- not that I'm gonna go into that here -- and unfortunately, we also don't have a dog. But I always wanted a dog. I mean, when I was growing up we always had two cats. Oh, their names changed over the years -- Velvet, Cloudy, Lassie, Baby Kitty, Bob -- but we always had cats at our house, never a dog. So I've never had a dog, not ever! And we see so many adorable babies every day -- on the street with their jaunty tails, and cute little faces. Awwww. Super cute! I love dachshunds and shelties and pugs and cocker spaniels and pomeranians and shih tzus and...I could go on forever. I looove dogs.

One time we had a dog. No kidding! Here's how that went.

When we bought our house back in the summer of 2003, first on my list of things to do (uh, besides sage smudge the house for ghosts, duh! Because the place might have had a ghost or something. Remind me to tell you about my ghost issues later, 'kay?) was to convince Jim that we needed a dog. NEEDED a dog. So we had this "pros and cons of dog ownership" conversation like a hundred times on the bus on the way home. I was always watching the Humane Society website for cute dogs. We couldn't decide what to do. So finally, after getting fed up with not making a decision, we just went to the Wisconsin Humane Society and got ourselves a dog.

Baby was a 3-year-old mutt who had been picked up by the place as a stray. She was a smaller dog, and very cute. But I'll tell you one thing that isn't two things, we quickly realized that Baby couldn't give two shits about me and Jim. She was there for food, water, walks and taking a dump. Otherwise, she couldn't be bothered. She didn't want to play. She didn't want to be petted. She just wanted to give us dirty looks and lay there. Boring. At least she didn't bark...at all...which was a good thing.

But once we got her home I realized she had all these scars in her fur around her neck from fighting with other dogs. And every time we took her for a walk it was a real adventure. She HATED other dogs. I mean, lunging, growling, etc etc. It got to a point where we were afraid to walk her because she was so aggressive, something they neglected to inform us about at the humane society.

Jim and I were kinda getting sick of investing all this time and energy and money into a dog that basically hated us, hated other dogs, and hated life in general. I mean, what dog doesn't want to play with a ball? Baby didn't, that was for sure. What dog doesn't want to hang out and watch teev with their family? Baby was like, hell to the no on that one, kids. We bought her so many toys and treats she must have felt like she won the lottery, but nothing worked. Besides, Jim and I were out of the house at work from 6:30 AM to 5 PM every day. That must have been super boring. So I don't blame her for being pissed off and bored stiff -- she was pissing on the kitchen rug basically every day, anyway, to get back at us. (We kept her gated in the kitchen all day - bad idea. We should have just crated her like everyone told us to, but I felt that was totally inhumane. Later I found out that dogs actually like being crated. Who knew!)

The straw that broke the camel's back was Mother's Day, 2004. We were on a walk, and this guy was out washing his car. His dog was sitting his his front yard, and it was not on a leash. So his dog starts trotting over to Baby, and the guy's like "Oh, don't mind Rover. She's a really mellow dog!" and I'm like, "Uh, our dog's not!" and next thing you know Baby and Rover are having an all out dogfight. I was totally scared so I dropped Baby's leash and freaked out. The guy called Rover and broke up the fight, and yelled at me for dropping the leash. Good thing Rover was okay, but I wasn't.

I cried all the way home, and Jim and I agreed that that was the end of the line for us and Baby. We took her back to the humane society that afternoon, with all 549 of her toys and a 50 lbs bag of food. The humane society asked us why we were returning her, and I was like, "Uh, because she's a danger to other dogs and a lawsuit when she attacks a kid or something is not something we're really interested in right now, thanks though!"

As she was led away from us, Baby looked at us with this "and what were your names again?" face. She didn't care one way or the other that we just gave her back to the humane society. She was like, "Whatever, that's my doggie fate". So Jim and I are sobbing through this whole experience, and we both feel like utter failures in our canine venture. But you know what? I think Baby was better off. Maybe she found a nice family to play with her. Maybe she's hanging out right now with them at the park. Although, maybe they put her down because of her temperament, though I'm not sure if the humane society does that or not.

Either way, that was our dog experience. Thank god for the cyber dogs on Facebook. I mean, I think that's all the dog I can handle right now. Jim and I have decided that we will probably get another dog, but with a lot of conditions -- one of us has to either work from home or be retired so someone's with the dog all day, and the dog has to be a puppy. Oh, yeah. And the dog has to actually care about us, for real!

Do you have a dog? Good for you. :)