Stupid Dogs

You know, being the mom of a special needs child isn't very stressful. It doesn't involve much driving around town, many appointments, hours of therapy, extra time doing meds/tube feeds/catheterizing. None of that.

Right? Obviously not. So the dogs in this house have decided to start throwing in a little hoopla to stir up our otherwise boring, blah, and drab life.

One dog is too old to care. She just watches the other two trouble makers. The second dog DIGS all of a sudden. Our backyard is full of pits. Including two which she dug UNDER THE FENCE to the neighbors yard. These holes allowed the third dog, the boston terrier from hell, to go into said neighbors yard. The first time she came right back when I realized it and called her, and bricked up the hole. It wasn't TOO big of a deal.

But not this time. This time, she came back through the fence. I piled up bricks in this (second) hole. I went to Petco and bought "No Dig" spray that they swear will work, even though I am sure I just wasted ten dollars. I came home, sprayed it all over the area, and started helping Monkey with his homework.

Until we realized that dog number two, the digger, was missing. I climbed up on the swing set to look over the fence and sure enough, she was in the neighbor's yard. I unpiled all the bricks and tried to get her to come back through the hole. Which of course was too SMALL on the neighbor's side, and she couldn't fit back through it. I climbed back on the swing set to look and see what to do, and realized that the neighbor's desert tortoise is on it's back. On it's BACK. You know, the side they're NOT supposed to be on. The side that they can DIE from being on.

I am at this point in a panic. The neighbors aren't home, and with all my arthritis and such, there is no way I can climb the damn fence. I called friends, until I found one whose husband was home.

He rushed over, climbed the fence, and righted the tortoise. Which hissed at him and tried to bite him. Not very appreciative!

He couldn't get the dog back through the hole, it was simply too small. Who knows how she got through it the first time. So now he's trying to lift a 40 pound dog OVER the 6 foot tall fence. I pulled the kid's garden bench to it and stood on it. He managed to heft the beast - I mean dog - over to me. Then he climbed back over.

Drama over, right?

Until I got home today. And the smaller dog - the one that has bitten and popped every ball we owned, eaten every plastic pot in my backyard, and loves to shred cardboard - is looking mighty guilty. I call her name, she runs out back.

I start wandering around looking for what she did.

She shredded the arm of my less-than-two-years-old love seat. It's SHREDDED. There is white cotton fluff EVERYWHERE.

Oh.My.Hell.

Dear Monkey is on a camping trip with my brother. He loves this dog more thanhe loves me I think. If we get rid of her, he will be seriously heartbroken. What the hell do I do? My husband is ready to kill me. We do have a warranty on the couch and loveseat that they said even covers pet damage, but I have to find it. And deal with a warranty company and repair company.

This stupid STUPID dog. Do I break my son's heart? He sleeps with this dog in his bed. He watches TV with this dog in his lap. When he left for camping this afternoon he said "I'll miss you Mom, but not as much as I'll miss Hannah". Hannah A.K.A. Stupid Dog.

Who decided we should keep them as pets in the first place??????? We should eat them for dinner and be done with it.

Just kidding.

Sort of.