Tales of a Tireless Mom: Doggone it, There's a New King in Town

It was bound to happen sooner or later; I guess I just always thought it would be far into the future.  But when the time came, I was helpless to fight it and went out not in a blaze of glory but rather with a sad, quiet whimper.

The Queen has been overthrown.  My family went and got themselves a dog.

I’ve never had a dog.  We had a cat growing up and so when Andy and I were engaged, we thought it would be cute to get a couple of kittens (you know, now that we were, like, 24 and SO grown up and stuff).  Ripken and Smokey the Wonder Cat were with us for 12 and 15 years respectively and so whenever the kids initiated The Dog Conversation, the stock answer was always the same:

“But we have cats; you wouldn’t want to make them sad, would you?”

Three years ago, Ripken passed away and then this July, Smokey was gone.  I feared it wouldn’t be long.

It began a few months ago with “harmless” afterschool trips to the Animal Shelter where Andy would take the kids to drool over how adorable the dogs were.  One day he and Georgia came home all atwitter about “The CUTEST dog named Daisy who is just one year old, great with little kids and SO friendly!”

I went to visit said dog with Ben and Georgia the following day.  In my opinion, Daisy appeared to be a 100 lb. Boxer with 1% body fat who ate toddlers for breakfast.

DENIED.

Before I knew it, Andy and the kids had fallen in love with a rescue dog in Tennessee that they had found online (apparently there are no mutts available in New England).  Elvis - he IS from Tennessee, after all - is a 12 lb. Dachshund mix, nine months old and (mostly) housetrained.  While I wasn’t saying no outright, I tried to explain that perhaps if we just waited until the spring when we could properly train a dog from puppyhood, it might be a better route to take.  “Adopting a dog isn’t something that you decide upon quickly; you need to take time finding the RIGHT one.”

I consider it my greatest failure as a professional salesperson, as I’m sure you can guess what happened next.

A week later, Andy and Georgia were off to pick up Elvis and we became a dog family.  As he scurried out of his crate, I raised an eyebrow at this tiny little guy.  I’ll admit, I was a bit concerned that all of my big dog-owning friends would laugh at Elvis (as would a few neighborhood cats) and while looking at his diminutive muzzle, I half expected Chris Rock’s voice to come out of his mouth.  With an open heart (and not completely closed mind), I decided to give him a chance.

Well, I’ll admit, I dig Elvis.  Aside from the fact that the children are completely enamored with him (as is Andy, the biggest kid in the family), they are pretty good about taking care of him.  He’s far from perfect and still has a lot to learn about the rules of the house, but he has a nice little disposition and seems really grateful to be here.  And considering that I work from home, he spends most of the day with me in my office asleep at my feet.

I mean, as long as someone in this house reveres the Queen then I’ve still got it, right?