The Dog

I know, I know, it’s been a while.

Two words: Five Boys.

Seriously, between a baby, a toddler, a 5 year old, and a 9 and 10 year old, life is just simply crazy.  Add in summer vacation, 6 very longs days stuck in a van driving, doctor appointments, church responsibilities, homeschooling, keeping a house decent, and now add a dog… yes, you read that right, we the crazy family got a dog… and you get chaos.

I haven’t been on Facebook much, I only check my email once a week if I am on top of things, and trying to post a blog page… just isn’t happening often.  What?  You want to know how I managed this?  Well, the 3 big boys are working on school work, the toddler is the play pin, baby is on a play-mat, and the dog is out in the backyard digging holes in my garden.

I have a few minutes to get down some thoughts.

About 3 weeks ago, Ben and I had this brilliant idea that maybe it was time to get the boys a dog.  We both knew there were things that a pet could teach them, that we couldn’t.  Like learning to care for someone other than one’s self, and what it’s like to have important responsibilities, even more important than household chores… but only slightly so.

So we took the boys to the animal shelter and let them pick out a dog.

Meet Lego (Short for Legolas):

Cutest little German Shepard mix you’ll ever see… those ears, right?!

Don’t be fooled.

He is a little beast.

I wanted the old geezer dogs that just lay around all day.  But the boys, heck no!  They wanted the big puppy.  That bites. A lot.

He was only home a minute when the kids discovered his trickery.  He was so sweet at the shelter, then he gets through the door and becomes Satan’s minion.

We realize he is a puppy and there is a learning curve for everyone involved.  So we decided to work with him the best we could, and give him some time to adjust.

All the boys, except Jojo (the fearless toddler) became terrified of him.  No one would play with him.  Ben and I became all scabbed up from being repeatedly bitten.  But we were determined to get through this and have a great dog.  As most of you know, we aren’t quitters!

The boys and I started taking him for long walks:

We been using all the training methods we could find online and in support groups, we even checked out the Pet Smart classes.  But Lego is just so naughty.

Last Friday, Ben took him running and afterwards as he was letting him the backyard to do his business, Lego full on attacked him and bit his leg pretty bad.  After a long week, we had had enough.
The boys weren’t sad at all, as they said their goodbyes to Lego.  He had to go back.  We couldn’t have a biting dog around the babies.  Nipping and puppy bites were one thing, but full out biting is a HUGE no go.

So Ben took him back to the shelter and they wouldn’t accept him.  Not only were they super rude to my husband, but they told him he could only bring him in on certain days and certain times — all times he had to work and they didn’t care.  Now, I understand that there are jerks that take their pets to shelters because of dumb reasons, I get that.  But don’t we want to discourage people from abandoning their pets on the streets?  A shelter is a much safer place and people should feel like they are understanding no matter the situation.  In our case, the dog was a danger to our babies.  Shouldn’t that warrant some kindness and understanding??

Whatever.

Ben brought him home.

The kids where like what the heck?!

I asked Ben if he thought maybe it was a sign that we needed to give him another chance.  He said, he thought it was a sign that the shelter people were total dicks.

So we decided to give Lego a second chance.  First thing we did was go to Walmart and get a bark collar.  He was driving us CRAZY barking.  At first, I wasn’t for it, because it seemed so cruel.  But let me tell you, he only tested it’s power twice and he hasn’t barked since.  Woo Hoo!  He has also been much better with the biting.  He is finally learning that we don’t like it and he gets in doggy time out when he does… and doggy time out is no fun — on a leash attached to the banister for a few minutes.

It’s getting better, things with a dog.  And I am actually glad we decided to give him another chance.

-Cat