Doggone It

Or so I wish, most of the time.

Setting: The first days of November 2009

"I'm going to run this by you first since I don't know what you'll think, but I really want to do something special for Tom's 30th birthday next week and I know he's always wanted a Yorkie and Paula's Cairn and Yorkie are having puppies soon and so I thought one of those puppies would make a great birthday present for him. Do you think that'll be okay?"

No. No. A million times, no.

That's what I wanted to say. That's what I wish I said.  But here's what I actually said:

"Umm. Sure. I guess. You can ask him; I'll leave it up to him."

No. No. A million times, no.

And that is how now, sixteen months later, we have a sixteen month old Cairn/Yorkie mix named Buster. A sixteen month old dog who, through only some fault of his own, has had four different homes, in chronological order: my parents' house, our old apartment, my in-laws' house, and our new home.

Buster was a teeny tiny puppy when we got him, but he was the biggest in his litter. Buster's mother almost died after giving birth to him, his three brothers, and one sister. As the biggest of the puppies, Buster seemed to take charge. His (human) foster mother told us how he was the first to learn how to drink out of the water dispenser and "showed" his siblings how to do so. He was just a little pipsqueak of a puppy, but he seemed to naturally take charge.

In short, I think we got a dog with mommy/abandonment issues.  (No, no, a million times, no.)

Because the hubby and I both worked full-time and didn't have the time to stay home and train Buster, he went to live with my parents since my mother wasn't working. He was paper trained and did a good job of sticking to the paper . . . most of the time. He was a voracious eater and a fierce playmate with seemingly endless energy, easily exhausting the large mixed breed dog my parents have.

After a month or so, Buster came to live with us. It quickly became evident that we needed to know how to train him, so we signed up for puppy training classes at a local pet store. I was at the end of my second trimester and we wanted Buster to be whipped into shape before the baby was born.

That didn't happen. Buster was hyper. Really hyper. And he just would not take to housebreaking. After being paper-trained, he didn't seem to want to let go of the option to do his business in the house. It was annoying and really something a couple about to have their first baby should not have to be dealing with.

And I continued to wish I just said, "No. Don't buy us the dog." But I hadn't and now he was our responsibility.

In the meantime, Buster's brother got returned to the Humane Society two or three times because his owners were finding him too difficult to handle. Friends of my parents adopted Buster's sister and also repeatedly considered returning her (to date, they haven't, though).

If it were up to me, Buster would have been returned. Easily. And a while ago.

After Nate was born, Buster went to live with my in-laws, who graciously kept him for us for six months - far longer than we had originally asked. But we couldn't envision how we'd manage both Buster and the baby in our little apartment so they kept him until we moved to someplace bigger and got settled in. Unfortunately, their house is busy and hectic and they were unable to give Buster the sort of training attention that he needed and so whatever progress we had made was mostly lost.

We are still working on housebreaking Buster and I wonder daily how nice life would be if I didn't have to clean his crate and mop the floor nearly every single day. How nice it'd be if I could let Nate crawl on the kitchen floor without having to scrub and disinfect it first. How nice it'd be not to have a huge gate across the doorframe from the kitchen to the dining room. How nice it'd be not to hear barking every single time our upstairs neighbors come and go. How nice it'd be if I'd just had the courage sixteen months ago to say no - no, don't buy us that dog.

Then I think about Buster. Where would he be if we said no? Would he have been returned several times like his brother? Would he have found a home much more suitable than ours - one where he wouldn't have been shuffled around so much? There's no way of knowing who would be better or worse off.

Around noon today, I got Nate up from his nap while the hubby took a shower. Nate and I sat in the glider for a bit, talking and singing songs. Then I plopped him on the floor and headed toward the kitchen to grab a snack. As I entered the dining room, I came to a screeching halt - literally. I stopped short and screeched. Sitting there on the floor next to one of our dining room chairs was a little gray mouse.

I spun around, dashed to Nate, scooped him up, and ran into the bathroom and slammed the door.

"Auughhh! There's a mouse in the dining room! Nate and I are going to hide in the bathroom here with you until you finish your shower."

We had a mouse once at our previous apartment. I came home from work and there it was, dead on the kitchen floor. As best as I could guess, based on the pristine condition of that mouse, it seems Buster thought it was a toy, chased it, caught it, shook it, broke its neck, and then deemed it uninteresting, dropping it and leaving it alone. Either that or the mouse took one look at Buster and had a heart attack and keeled over.

I don't mind bugs and spiders. I've even dealt with a bird in my room at my parents' house - three times. But I just do not want to ever have to deal with a mouse, even if it's tiny.

So today, I'm glad we have Buster. He didn't get today's mouse yet (it scooted out of the kitchen through a heating grate), but he's on the job. And it's obvious he knows he has a job to do. As a terrier, it's what he's made for and I'm happy to let him have the sense of fulfilled character that taking care of our little friend Mickey will give him.  Yech.

The hubby won't hear talk of returning Buster, so he's our responsibility to keep. As much as I think the idea that everything happens for a reason is completely bogus, I can't help but feel that it's true sometimes (the "sometimes" being what makes it so bogus). Regardless, I like to think that Buster is better off with us than he may have been with another family because we just keep trying to get him properly integrated into our home.

And now, if you'll excuse me, he's barking his head off. Time to go see if it is at a man or a mouse.

This post is an entry for the Living Out Loud project.  This month’s theme was “Tempting Fate”.  If you’d like to take part in future projects, click here!