Oregon has a bad rap about all the puddles. Well it used to. The rain is actually not bad and OR has some of the mildest weather anywhere all things considered. I went out with no coat on today. There were a few raindrops but I didn't have to worry about loosing fingers or toes, slip to my death, or need to scrape anything off my car, or worse. This is coming from someone who would rather be living in Arizona and so nothing about winter will be perfect, I have all the snow I want within an hour's drive and the appropriately maximum twice a year in my yard.
But the puddles I am having a hard time with lately, even in January, are coming from inside my own house.
After having spent our last red cent on this dog and purposefully bypassing the adorable puppy stage so he wouldn't ruin our house, we may have to end up buying all new carpets anyway.
And the worst thing is, it is on purpose. He knows exactly what he is doing. he can control his functions perfectly. And it isn't that he doesn't prefer to go outside. He loves the weather, now that we got his foot condition fixed (bad kennel owners, evil bad puppy mill people...)
He just likes to go inside, too.
Apparently that is one of the disadvantages of getting a nearly adult male dog. They don't like to move into a house that they don't feel is fully their territory. My luck.
Right now he and I are having to be very lonely for each other because he is being punished in the downstairs bathroom, as usual. He developed the absolute necessity to keep a bag of new curtains peed on.
Other than this, he is a delight. Seriously, the amount of love and adorableness that he has brought to us and the absolute giddy happiness of our kids has been hard to overstate. Seeing Drake take absolute responsibility that has come with being one of the main people to take care of him has been precious. So if the puddles were really so bad that if I would have known I wouldn't have gotten him, I probably wouldn't have gotten myself any kids, either. Because they are much messier, much more work, and much more frustrating.
So I guess we will survive.
3 comments:
Sure is a good lookin' pooch! Hang in there with the puddles. We certainly had many in Seattle with Bamboo.
How old was bamboo when you got him/her?
Was it a him or a her?
They say you can help the problem in males by altering them but it would break my heart, particularly because some of what I like about the breed is the predictable personality and the likable and entertainingness of their personality.
I know the lack of variation (inbreeding) that causes the uniform personality also is responsible for their various 'problems', and some of them have been bred out, like the Germans did with the bulldog/boxer, common ancestor after they outlawed bullbaiting in 1850 ish. Amy said that she prefers boxers for those reasons, and it is true they did fix several of the genetic problems and their more average dog-style body made them more typically atheletic (I think they bred them with retrievers or something so they are better runners where bulldogs' skills were more specific and definitely weren't running or endurance, but then again neither are mine!) But Harry can outrun Slade, so he doesn't do to bad either.
But the boxers and the other cross breeds, while introducing improbement also make it so there is less uniformity, meaning you never know exactly what you are going to get. And that seems to be the case, the bulldogs I know are very similar in behavior and other dogs can be all over the map.
Like John do you remember Grandma Hicks' poodle? Dad was so mad that he got that evil thing for her as a present when the parents were super nice. That is what can happen when there you forego the inbreeding, you just never know.
I don't know if you were old enough to remember a lot about BO but I swear Harry is so similar behavior wise and that is exactly what I wanted. I figure if I wanted to avoid dog hair orpuddles bad enough my second choice would be no dog at all, because as I said I am not so much of a dog person anyway, I just got hooked on bullies and couldn't give em up.
I don't know if my kids would have liked another kind or not, they probably would have in some ways but a few (actually including Slade) have been pleasantly surprised about lulled in they were by his quirky personality and intense personableness.
The twins were actually sad when they heard we were getting a dog, Archer because they always seem to attack him (he is even scared by Charlie, still, don't ask me why) and Chase we didn't know he just didn't like dogs until we told him that is what he was getting for Christmas. But they all fight over who gets to sleep with him!
So yeah, probably worth the puddles, but that doesn't mean I don't hate them!
Post a Comment