5.06.2010

Dawg Daze

Our house is practically empty these days.  We only have two adults, two rats, three kids and three dogs.  That's a one to one pet:person ratio.  There was a time when our house was a menagerie of animal madness.  I contemplated charging an entry fee at the front door; we could have made a bundle.  "The Jinxiefoo Petting Zoo."  At one point, our bitty rambler contained:


  • Four box turtles
  • A bearded dragon
  • A lizard or gecko or some manner of non-bearded dragon cricket-chomping reptile who provided hours of entertainment by hiding under a rock
  • A sun conure (which is a small parrot capable of incomprehensible . . I'll call it "sound."  It can and will make your ears bleed.  But he had the cutest.personality.ever.)
  • Two ferrets
  • Two cats
  • Three dogs
  • Five - count 'em, FIVE - tropical fish aquariums.  (Aquaria?) 


We have also, over time, owned a rabbit and a cockatiel.  I heart birds - I heart them hard.  But for some reason, I have bad bird juju, and they don't last long in our home.  Maybe an animal really can be spoiled to death?  It just figures that the one "aminal" (as Vee called them for years) that I would want above all others isn't a keeper.  

I have to keep my guard up around here because I live in a house full of Animalmaniacs.  If it were up to THEM, we'd have our very own Dolittle Farm.  Pigs and goats and horses and llamas and the whole bit.  I'm sure we'd have close to twenty dogs by now.  Just call us the Bumpuses. It's not that I don't love animals.  Of course I do!  They're cute.  I like to pat them on the head.  But they also tend to do things like . . . lick yucky things.  And then lick ME.  And they're just one more creature in this house to serve food to. THEN - to add insult to injury - what goes in must come out, right?  In my experience, with animals, this often occurs in rather inconvenient places.

So I'm thrilled at our measly three dogs!  Even Cujo.  Cujo is a police dog.  He looks pretty, doesn't he?





And he is.  He's even sweet and affectionate - with adults.  Adults who aren't running away from a crime scene or waving weapons around, at least.  But he's nervous and nippy around little boys.  Perhaps he considers them a threat to society?  So, alas, he has been shunned from little boy contact.  He's a good worker, though.

We adopted our two terrors "terriers" from our local animal shelter.  

For Scout's eighth birthday, his Daddy drove him over to pick up a particular dog he had in mind.  But Scout never did see that dog.  He stopped in his tracks in front of Rex's cage.  He studied him for a long while, and then said, "Daddy . . . this one wants to go home with me."  And so - he did.  I'm quite glad of it, too.  For you see, Rex here is the good son.  He's my favourite.  If he had any kind of self esteem, he would know it, too.  He snuggles.  He plays fetch.  He comes when called.  He looks cute wearing a bandana.  What more could anybody possibly want in a dog?






















And then . . . there's Belle.  Belle is part terrier, part hound and it's not a good combination.  She has the insatiable need to hunt.  This apparently can't be done to her satisfaction within the walls of our home, so she unceasingly plots her escape.  Any little crack in the door and she is GAWN, baby.  And when she returns, shamefaced, she is almost always caked nose to tail-tip in mud.  She's a bunny-killing digging little Houdini beeyotch.  Not to mention that she's a face-licker.  ::shuddershudder::  She rules the Jinxieville animal kingdom, for sure - even puts Cujo in his place.  I suspect it won't be long before she takes on the entire world. 








I fear for the bunnies.




2 comments:

  1. I too love animals... and hope to have a menagerie(with the pigs and goats), but for now I just have two dogs and a koi fish. If we go by ratio, we're winning, it's 1.5:1 here! lol.

    What reader are you using? You should just be able to add my new address.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That could be a new christmas song....

    ~~~Four box turtles, 3 crazy dogs, two furry ferrets and a bearded dragon on my shirt!!~~~

    ReplyDelete