Tag Archives: cute

When we had one dog – a female Papillon, life was simple.  Then that dog, Heidi, developed liver failure.  My wife decided she could not bear the loss of the dog that we loved so much, so she got a second dog – Barclay.  Barclay is a male Shitzu.  Then we started to have accidents in the house and we were not always sure which dog to scold.  Then my son’s girlfriend needed a place for her dog while they are off at college.  So now we also have a male Pekingnese named Peanut.  Each of the dogs weighs between eight and fifteen pounds, most of it fur.  Suddenly, we had constant accidents, messes, and barking.  They started to exhibit pack behavior for the first time and have become a pain in the you know what.  Now we are the proud owners of child gates like you use for toddlers and we have to keep them contained to one area at a time.  If they hear a door open, a car go by, or anything on TV that sounds like a bell, they bark like a bunch of fuzzy idiots.

Our oldest, Heidi, decides to walk the perimeter of the backyard and bark at each corner when we let her outside to do her business.  This was not a problem until my wife’s work schedule changed and she started to let them out at 5:30 am.  Both sides of our neighbors placed little notes on our door expressing their dislike for being woke up at 5:30 each morning.  So now, we have to go out with them to watch them go so they won’t bark.  Of course the males are young and want to run all the time, so sometimes they go out alone and we leave old spooky inside.

Dogs are a strange thing.  All they do is eat, sleep and poop.  In exchange we fall in love with the little critters and play with them, provide them a life of ease and rub their ears every day.  Studies show I will live up to six years longer and have lower stress and blood pressure as a result of my little companions.  But after they have been barking or messing up the place it is hard to see how that is really true.

Heidi, Barclay and Peanut.  The Terrors of the neighborhood peace.