You know, I'm not a dog person. I think their one of the dumbest animals ever created. I'm not saying there aren't some smart ones, because there are plenty. There are dogs that act in movies, police dogs, performance dogs, seeing-eye-dogs and dogs trained to dial emergency services. Dogs that can detect bombs, drugs, weapons, track lost kids and all kinds of things. It's just, these are never the dogs I actually come in contact with.
The kind of dogs I come in contact with think it's fun to bite the wheel of a moving car. The dogs I know look at a stick and wonder why the heck your throwing it over their head. The dogs I've owned, have difficulty telling the living room floor from a toilet. And the dogs I've owned have ALL been on that not-so-sharp end of the spectrum. In short, all my dogs have been dumb.
Now I mentioned that I'm not a dog-person. In other words, I'm not the kind of person to treat their dog as if it were an actual human being. Sure, I understand that the animal has feelings, that it has a capacity to love it's master and that it can suffer from some of the same emotional problems that humans suffer from. But I'm absolutely not going to put so much concern and care into my dog that I forget to take care of the humans in family first and foremost. I also have a short span of patience for a dog that can remember commands like "got to bed", "backyard" (for going to the bathroom) and "are you finished? (for not staying outside just to play), but not be able to understand the simple command "the living room floor is not the backyard!" In other words, I undesrtand dogs are living things, but I also understand that they are NOT human.
This is where my dog comes in, and probably part of the reason I've never mentioned her before. Her name is Precious (named after we went to see The Two Towers) and she is, quite frankly, dumb as a sack of hammers. She wasn't mine to begin with, she was my wife's before we got married, and I always somewhat resented the fact that we never got to pick out our own dog together, and instead had this mentally deficit Shi-tzu thrust upon us by some associates who did a switcheroo when giving us a dog in the first place (We were supposed to get a black one, and ended up with this dirty white runt of the litter).
She's part of the reason I stay so busy at home all the time. I'm constantly cleaning up after her, constantly disciplining her, constanltly trying to keep the baby from trampling her with her walker and only recently got her to localize her "accidents" to a blanket in the living room. I've had her for seven years now and she's probably the only living creature to date to ever push my buttons and my temper to the absolute limit.
So with that all that said, and with all my frustration and aggrevation rooted in one animal, it might come as somewhat of a shock to you that I've never felt quite as miserable as I do right now. You see, Precious died this morning from Pneumonia, right beside me in her cage as I was rushing her to a vet that was actually open. I went to two vets today, but neither doctor was on staff yet. Even so, I had no idea she was that sick. We thought she had a little stomach virus or bug last night. I stayed up with her last night making sure she wasn't real sick, although she was having some trouble keeping her water down, I just presumed she needed some rest and attention and would defnitly take her to the vet if she didn't get better by today.
Well, she's gone now. I buried here in the yard this morning right where she used to aways use the bathroom. Sort of an inside joke for our family, since we had a difficult time training her to stay away from the busy street we live on and to stay out of the driveway. I'm not a dog person and never will be, but now I understand fully what people go through when they loose a little critter that they take care of day in an day out for years. Even though it's just an animal, it's still a living thing and I haven't felt quite this miserable in a long time. So here I am, venting at the one place I always seem to vent, about a subject that didn't really mean that much to me until today and probably doesn't mean that much to you. I'm not a dog-person, but Precious was MY dog, and for that reason I'm VERY unhappy.
So at the risk at sounding like one of those cornballs that do tributes for their dog and build websites and dress their dogs up in furs and coats and rabbit costumes and whatnot, here's a very small and very silly tribute to Precious Martinez. Take it with a grain of salt. It makes me feel a little bit better.
*Picture to be added later*
The kind of dogs I come in contact with think it's fun to bite the wheel of a moving car. The dogs I know look at a stick and wonder why the heck your throwing it over their head. The dogs I've owned, have difficulty telling the living room floor from a toilet. And the dogs I've owned have ALL been on that not-so-sharp end of the spectrum. In short, all my dogs have been dumb.
Now I mentioned that I'm not a dog-person. In other words, I'm not the kind of person to treat their dog as if it were an actual human being. Sure, I understand that the animal has feelings, that it has a capacity to love it's master and that it can suffer from some of the same emotional problems that humans suffer from. But I'm absolutely not going to put so much concern and care into my dog that I forget to take care of the humans in family first and foremost. I also have a short span of patience for a dog that can remember commands like "got to bed", "backyard" (for going to the bathroom) and "are you finished? (for not staying outside just to play), but not be able to understand the simple command "the living room floor is not the backyard!" In other words, I undesrtand dogs are living things, but I also understand that they are NOT human.
This is where my dog comes in, and probably part of the reason I've never mentioned her before. Her name is Precious (named after we went to see The Two Towers) and she is, quite frankly, dumb as a sack of hammers. She wasn't mine to begin with, she was my wife's before we got married, and I always somewhat resented the fact that we never got to pick out our own dog together, and instead had this mentally deficit Shi-tzu thrust upon us by some associates who did a switcheroo when giving us a dog in the first place (We were supposed to get a black one, and ended up with this dirty white runt of the litter).
She's part of the reason I stay so busy at home all the time. I'm constantly cleaning up after her, constantly disciplining her, constanltly trying to keep the baby from trampling her with her walker and only recently got her to localize her "accidents" to a blanket in the living room. I've had her for seven years now and she's probably the only living creature to date to ever push my buttons and my temper to the absolute limit.
So with that all that said, and with all my frustration and aggrevation rooted in one animal, it might come as somewhat of a shock to you that I've never felt quite as miserable as I do right now. You see, Precious died this morning from Pneumonia, right beside me in her cage as I was rushing her to a vet that was actually open. I went to two vets today, but neither doctor was on staff yet. Even so, I had no idea she was that sick. We thought she had a little stomach virus or bug last night. I stayed up with her last night making sure she wasn't real sick, although she was having some trouble keeping her water down, I just presumed she needed some rest and attention and would defnitly take her to the vet if she didn't get better by today.
Well, she's gone now. I buried here in the yard this morning right where she used to aways use the bathroom. Sort of an inside joke for our family, since we had a difficult time training her to stay away from the busy street we live on and to stay out of the driveway. I'm not a dog person and never will be, but now I understand fully what people go through when they loose a little critter that they take care of day in an day out for years. Even though it's just an animal, it's still a living thing and I haven't felt quite this miserable in a long time. So here I am, venting at the one place I always seem to vent, about a subject that didn't really mean that much to me until today and probably doesn't mean that much to you. I'm not a dog-person, but Precious was MY dog, and for that reason I'm VERY unhappy.
So at the risk at sounding like one of those cornballs that do tributes for their dog and build websites and dress their dogs up in furs and coats and rabbit costumes and whatnot, here's a very small and very silly tribute to Precious Martinez. Take it with a grain of salt. It makes me feel a little bit better.
*Picture to be added later*
