Tears

I thought I was doing better. I swore, no more tears.

And then Kira went in for surgery.

The vet told me a couple months ago that Kira had a broken molar.  It had a crack in it the size of the San Andreas fault. He said he would need to clean out the tooth to see how bad it was and with the vet bills piling up and the money I spent trying to get rid of the a-hole (and the money I've lost in the stock market) I couldn't schedule an appointment until this month.

It was worse than I expected. I mean it wasn't. I figured that tooth needed to be cut out. I just didn't realize how awful it was and how much work was involved.  The tooth was rotted through and black. The three roots ran deep and needed to be cut out too. If it hadn't been taken care of soon it would have abscessed and it would have been even worse.  I can only imagine the pain.  Poor dog.

So she went in for surgery.

Kira is usually pretty stoic.  Shes not a huge baby. Murphy is the baby. Joy can be a baby too. Kira is more like Tess was. Silent, out of the way.

She whined most of the evening. She tried to sleep as I'm sure the morphine doped her up, but of course Joy and the Gremlins would not let her rest. They had to constantly sniff her over to see where she was all day. She bore it all with the patience of Job. 

As for me, I ended up crying for three hours, rather than my usual two on a Tuesday night. I can't handle it when my animals are in pain. And when they whine it makes my heart hurt worse. And to add insult to injury, I took them all out around 6 p.m. and there was the abusive asshole, parked at his storage unit, getting God knows what out to move to the current flavor of the month, whoever that unlucky woman is. That whole situation pissed me off. The storage unit is right down the block from my house and his particular unit is situated so that he can see right into my backyard. 

So I'm sure he got an eyeful of Murphy and Kira, and not that he cared that Kira just underwent several hours of grueling surgery and now has a hole in her mouth the size of a galaxy. I mean it's good that he doesn't care about the dogs. At least he won't be coming back for them. But there is still a part of me that is furious about that. I mean, Kira was his dog and he just left her. Had he not left her she never would have gotten this surgery and would have ended up with an abscess, I understand that. It all worked out best for Kira, don't get me wrong. I guess that just hurts too. Like I guess none of us mattered at all.

And Murphy? Murphy was his treasure when he was serving a purpose, like being cute enough to pick up chicks while I was at work. Now Murphy doesn't even matter to him.

So I herded everyone back inside as quickly as possible, trying to shield Murphy as best I could, and went to take the poop I scooped out front to the trash. Then he drove by when I was out front. It's like I could not get away from him that night. 

After that the tears would not stop. I literally could not stop crying. It's become my ritual. Every Tuesday night, I sit on the kitchen floor and cry for two hours. That last week I thought I'd finally made a breakthrough and I decided no more tears. Then there we were on a Wednesday night, crying for three hours. Kira had her head in my lap, whining. Murphy sat on the back of the couch behind me and Colleen sat beside me. Joy ignored all of us. 

We were a wreck. I don't know if Kira was whining because of her tooth or if she was whining because I was sobbing on the couch.  Maybe a little of both. Maybe on some level she knew the person who abandoned her had been just a few yards away.

The person who was supposed to be "her" person.

Well, Kira will never be abandoned again. She at least is better off, even with the hole in her mouth. She eats a fresh diet, she has a pack of friends and a warm bed every night. She is loved.

I feel sorry for him. What he's missed out on.

The Price of Love

 My most expensive pet is Murphy.

So, I am a snob. I will admit it. I used to be that person who would NEVER get a purebred dog and most definitely would never buy from a breeder, and as a pretentious sixteen-year-old even went so far as to look down my large nose at people who did buy from breeders.

And yet I wanted a purebred German shepherd but I would only consider getting one as a rescue. And that all worked out with Tess, right down to the age (a year old), sex (female) and her breeding (impeccable with no genetic issues like hip dysplasia and I had the papers to prove it). I actually had nothing against purebreds. Just breeders. Which is idiotic when you think about it because someone got the dog from a breeder, dumped her at the animal shelter where I later acquired her. I mean, talk about a hypocrite.

I can admit my shortcomings and negative personality traits. I don't have a lot of admirable qualities to begin with.

Lightning struck twice for me and I acquired Joy, also a purebred shepherd, also a rescue, but she did come from a backyard breeder and ended up with a friend who handed her over to me, knowing that I love shepherds. I don't have her papers, but I'm hoping her straight back and easy gait means that she too will avoid the hip dysplasia issue.

So I was able to keep my pretentious attitude and still get my purebred German shepherds. To be honest I let go of that snotty attitude years ago. I got over myself pretty fast when I realized how people acquire their pets is none of my business. I just was lucky enough to find what I wanted in rescues.

I no longer look down on people who buy from breeders. I have joined their ranks. All I care about anymore is if people take care of their pets and don't unleash them on me and my dogs. 

I have two papillons that I did buy from a breeder. "The Gremlins," I call them. They are a special circumstance because 1.) I never thought I'd ever have a chance to own papillons. They are not a common breed, puppies are hard to come by, and they are very expensive, and 2.) my best friend just happen to work with someone who does breed them and is also a reputable breeder who breeds a championship line with very few health issues. So not a puppy mill, not a backyard breeder, and definitely not cranking out puppies for profit. She breeds one female a year once a year and usually only has two puppies.

I'm a greedy asshole and ended up just buying the whole litter when they were born. Well, in my defense I only wanted the female, but the abusive alcoholic I lived with at the time insisted that we just get both because it would be sad to buy one and leave the other one to languish like he wouldn't be snapped up immediately. 

This was Murphy. Technically he belonged to my ex. My ex initially wanted him, paid for him, and named him, but I ended up paying all the vet bills, the AKC registration fee, and all his food and toys. I also did the bulk of the animal care like feeding and walking them because he was usually passed out in the mornings after the previous day's drinking and then drunk by the evening, so these animals never would have eaten if I didn't handle it. I mean I don't mind taking care of my animals, that's what they are there for.

But I digress.

All he did with the animals was throw the big dogs outside all day and ignore them, then drive around town (drunk mind you) all day with the gremlins showing them off and probably picking up chicks. Then he'd come home and complain about all the attention he kept getting when he was out and about with them.

I wonder sometimes if he didn't get Murphy to use against me, an ace up his sleeve so to speak. He was never into little fluffy dogs like papillons. He liked muscle meathead dogs like Bulldogs and Rottweilers. He didn't even know what a papillon was until I showed him a picture.

When it came to actual discipline, he wasn't nice. Murphy peed on the bed once and the ex scruffed him so hard he yelped and cried. Then he took him outside and beat him. He was maybe four months old. Way too young to be completely housetrained. When Murphy was three months old, he was running around the park happily and didn't perform recall as quickly as the ex wanted (we hadn't exactly had them in obedience class), so the ex scruffed him hard and shook him, and I swear they could hear him yelping and screaming a block away.

Murphy almost fell out of the truck once when we were driving. The ex had the driver's side window rolled all the way down and Murphy was hanging halfway out. Luckily he wore a harness so when he almost bounced out, we were able to grab his harness and pull him back in. I was upset. He told me to calm the fuck down and he did it all the time with Colleen too when I wasn't with him.

When Murphy got his rabies shot, he had such a bad reaction to it that he whined and cried all night, keeping me up, and the ex got so furious with me for "babying" Murphy that he stomped upstairs to the guest room with him and wouldn't let me see him or comfort him. He was always calling Murphy a puss or a wimpy little dog.

Murphy got into the ex's weed stash once. He always left his bowl with the leftover resin on the floor of the guest room, and Murphy got up there once and ate part of the resin. He was so looped out and sick for the rest of the night, I almost called emergency vet, but the ex wouldn't let me. He didn't even feel that bad about it, just laughed and said Murphy learned his lesson.

I'm here to tell you, Murphy did not learn his lesson. He's a year old and I still fish stuff out of his mouth that he shouldn't have. I just watch him better.

When I finally got up the nerve to leave, I loaded all the animals in my car one morning while he was passed out and took them to a friend's house where I stayed for a week while I let the police and the court system sort it out. He tried to get Murphy back (he didn't care about Kira). At that point everything was in my name, he had said several times that "Murphy is yours anyway because you'll have to take care of him when I'm gone" (yes, constant suicide threats), and I had given him four thousand dollars to start a business, money I was pretty sure I'd never see again. 

In other words, I paid for that puppy, not just monetarily, but in blood, sweat, and tears.

I was in a constant state of anxiety of what would happen to this little dog if I didn't take him out of that environment. I was concerned for the other dogs too (the only dog he never beat was Colleen, and that was probably because she weighed all of two pounds and would break if you looked at her cross-eyed), but he didn't care about them. Murphy was his chick magnet.

I get accused of Murphy being my "favorite," but I think I'm just the most protective of him because of how bad it could have gone for him. He'd be dead by now. Either he'd have fallen out of a moving truck window and broken his leg or worse, his neck.  Or when the ex got angry enough, he'd have beaten the little guy hard enough to really hurt him. Murphy would have gone from a happy, fun-loving cutie, to a cowering, timid mess. He might have even turned aggressive. 

Or one night I have no doubt we would have all ended up on the business end of that loaded pistol the ex kept in the house.

Murphy is the dog most attached to me. When we first got the gremlins, the ex would pass out drunk by seven o'clock, leaving me to care for the dogs, and the gremlins would snuggle on the couch with me and then sleep on the bed. Murphy was always tucked next to me by the next morning. I don't know if he thought of me as his protector, or if it's just because I was the nicer one. Joy was already attached to me, as I raised her from a puppy, and Kira isn't bonded to anyone. She just wants a warm bed and a bowl full of food and the occasional ear scratch. Colleen was mine from the moment the breeder handed her to me. But Murphy took months to decide who he would attach to, and even though he spent every day with the ex, I'm the one he glued himself to. And once he decided that, we were bonded.

Maybe he thought he was protecting me.

It's funny. This little dog who cost me an arm and a leg and possibly a piece of my soul has become my reason for getting out of bed in the morning. I love all my animals but Murphy's antics can put a smile on my face when I've been in tears for two hours. I guess every disaster has a silver lining, and mine is Murphy.

This face is just too much.

Too Many Dogs

Four dogs are a lot.

Having two tiny gremlins is nerve wracking to say the least. When Murphy went in to get neutered. I about had to take a Xanax to get through the ordeal and he's the one who had surgery. He went through it with flying colors. He was an excellent anesthesia patient, the procedure went very well, and I was able to take him home that afternoon.

Murphy, however, was a terrible patient. He kept trying to lick his nether regions, so they put the cone of shame on him. He was more upset about the cone of shame than the surgery. He kept running into walls, he got the edge of the stupid thing caught on his kennel, and then he managed to paw it off twice and proceeded to lick until his business was red. He whined continuously and peed on the bed because he wouldn't go potty the first ten times I took him outside. He seemed to think the cone inhibited his ability to pee. I managed to figure out that putting his harness on him has the same effect as the cone, it's just not as scary. He's getting used to his harness now, but at the time he seemed to think when he wears his harness, he's in trouble or something so he doesn't do anything but sit and look miserable.

Two days later and he was fine. His usual rambunctious silly self, bouncing off the walls.

Colleen went in to get spayed a week later.

Turns out I gave the vet a nervous complex. I guess he and I both needed a Xanax. Colleen went through the surgery fine and everything was fine, but he admitted after the fact that he'd been a nervous wreck all week about it.

Words you never want to hear from your vet.

Well, Colleen doesn't even weigh four pounds (despite eating like a horse), and the vet said it's like performing a hysterectomy on a preemie. Perhaps in the future of papillon ownership I will lean towards the bigger ones.

I've panicked over Colleen three or four times already. As a three-month-old puppy, she fell off the cat ledge and fell six feet onto my art table. I heard a yelp and a whine, and I raced downstairs to find her standing on the art table looking completely bewildered. Cue call to emergency vet. I was hysterical. The nice man on call told me she was probably fine, she just needed to sleep it off, and if she wasn't fine to call back and bring her in. She slept that whole afternoon, snapped at her brother a few times for bothering her (it was his fault she took a flying leap in the first place), and the next day she was fine.

Then there was the choking incident. I think she was about five months old. I took all the dogs out to go potty. I turned my back for literally a second to scoop poop, and when I turned back around she was frantically pawing at her muzzle and freaking out. I scooped her up, shoved my fingers down her throat and felt a stick wedged in there. I, of course, panicked myself, and rushed her inside. I tried to remove the stick again and suddenly there was blood everywhere, down my finger, all over her paws. I called emergency vet hysterical, they told me to rush her over, and I was sure she would die in the meantime. I threw both gremlins in the car as I didn't know what to do with Murphy and there was no way I was leaving him alone. I got them to the vet clinic, and by this time Colleen was just sitting on the front seat staring at me with huge eyes, very much alive, seeming to breathe just fine. I realized the blood was mine. She'd gnawed my finger halfway to the bone. The vet checked her over, did x-rays, she came up completely healthy, and I paid a 300 dollar bill for my own stupidity.

Then there's Joy. Joy started to regress. Horribly in fact. She was doing well there for a while, and then I threw out the abusive asshole who was living with me and got two puppies, and suddenly she decided she's a puppy again too. She has become destructive. She has eaten my niece's favorite unicorn (that was traumatic - believe me, I used to be an eight-year-old little girl who cherishes all her stuffed animals, I can only imagine if a dog had eaten Fuzzy or Tuppy), two pillows (one being the first thing I ever sewed all by myself in eighth grade), and my mattress topper. I came home to find chunks of memory foam all over the bedroom and huge Jaws-like bite marks all along the edges of the topper on the bed. I was furious, but looking back now, I mean, Joy really should be renamed Jaws. It's kind of hilarious. I still have the topper. It's not ruined, and it's covered so whatever, but the bite marks really do look like a shark went after it.

Oh, Joy. She has started eating poop again, she barks at EVERY SINGLE DOG she sees, including the neighbor dogs that she sees literally every day, and she also barks at every distant bark she hears in the night. I can't let her outside when the neighbor pit bulls are out there. She and their female race to the break in the fence and bark at each other like they want to kill each other. Sometimes the neighbor dog starts it, and sometimes Joy starts it. I have bent over backwards trying to find the best diet I can for all my dogs and ended up making her sick with boiled chicken. She's always eaten chicken. Her kibble is chicken, she eats freeze-dried chicken treats, her Fresh Pet is chicken. But plain boiled chicken? Nothing added, thoroughly cooked through (I made sure) and total diarrhea. I felt awful. Poor dog. The other three dogs were fine.

I expected gastrointestinal issues from Tess. That dog had the tenderest tummy ever. Joy is a canine trash disposal. She'll literally eat shit off the ground, but chicken gave her the runs. Go figure.

And Kira? Well, Kira is my best child. She's older than the rest, seven or eight. Most of the time she's good as gold. She eats her food, she naps on her bed, and she stays out of the way. Then there was the night she almost killed Murphy. I took the four of them on a walk, something I have done many times and they are all usually pretty good (except for the dog reactive thing that suddenly everyone has acquired). I tie Joy (Jaws) around my waist, hold Kira's leash in my left hand, and the puppies in my right. The puppies wear harnesses. Joy wears a gentle leader. 

Anyway, downtown there are a bunch of statues displayed, and Murphy sort of lost his shit at the life-sized rhinoceros statue. Tess used to do that too. When I first got her, she freaked out at each statue until I walked up to it and put my hand on it to show her it wasn't alive. So I did the same with Murphy. Colleen pranced right up and gave it a sniff. Joy just sort of rolled her eyes at everyone. Kira decided she needed to cross to my other side so she could jump on the platform the rhino sits on. She jumped up, then down, then over Murphy, rolled him in the street, got everybody's leashes tangled and Murphy slipped his harness.

I had visions of him darting across Main Street and getting hit by a car. He started to run down the sidewalk with me chasing after him, dragging Joy who was still tied to my waist and Colleen who just follows me wherever I go. I had dropped Kira's leash and told her to stay by the rhino which she did, utterly terrified. Luckily it was a Friday evening and there wasn't much traffic. I was so panicked that of course Murphy ran away from me as I'm sure I terrified him. I finally crouched down and called him, and he creeped over to me, so I was able to grab him up in my arms.

We spent the next fifteen minutes sitting on that rhino platform with Murphy clutched against my chest, Kira sitting like a demure lady by my feet, Colleen next to me on the platform and Joy still thinking we were all nuts. I think I thanked God about twenty times, sitting there and Murphy didn't move a muscle, just snuggled in my lap and let me hold him. Meanwhile a cop car passed twice, probably wondering what the hell.

Traveling is fun too. When I want to go anywhere, I have to board Joy and Kira, and drive the gremlins down to Colorado so my best friend can watch them. It's no longer just leaving my menagerie with my friend and one time house-sitter the Cowboy to watch them. He even offered again, "Hey, I'll watch your pets any time," and he just doesn't understand that this is not like it was with Tess. Tess was easy. In nice weather I could leave her out on the porch with food and water and she just watched the world go by. Now when I leave even for four hours to go to work, I have to lock Kira in the bedroom, Joy in the hallway, the gremlins each in their own kennels, and everyone gets a Kong to keep them occupied. Otherwise, Joy will destroy my house and eat the bed.

It is a fiasco, let me tell you.

These guys will be the death of me.

Sanctuary or Prison?

I went off the deep end this last month or so. 

It was long overdue.

I've been processing a very abusive relationship while also coming to terms with and accepting that I will never have a good, healthy long-term relationship as that is just not in the cards for me. Since it's something I've always wanted and prayed for, it's been hard to accept.

So yes, I went off the deep end a little, but I have come to terms with the fact that my longest and best relationship will always be Tess. I have finally accepted it. I don't have to give it a second thought now, and that is both a relief and a curse.

Complex PTSD is a confusing thing. I feel both guilt for lumping my situation in with the horrors others have experienced, especially since I got out without landing in the emergency room, and denial that it was even that bad. There has been an excess of drinking, a lot of sobbing and isolating, and okay, then there was the night I cussed God out and flipped him off a few times.

That scene in "Heat" when Sandra Bullock runs her middle fingers across the glass at all the police officers? That was me.

At the time, I truly didn't believe the abuse I endured was that bad. I mean, he never hit me. But dear God, the manipulation, the silent treatments, the gaslighting, the sexual abuse, the walking on eggshells, and my favorite, the constant name calling - well, I guess that stuff wears on one's emotional wellbeing. Runs down your self-esteem. Makes you feel less than human, like you don't even matter.

Until you truly believe you don't matter.

Who knew?

Add in that this was the third abusive relationship I've had in a row, and well, maybe a complete meltdown was in order. I got out of the other two with a bit less damage, I think maybe because I didn't live with them so they couldn't exert complete control over me. I might be nonconfrontational, but I've always fought for my own freedom. This last time I made the mistake of letting him move in, and that's when the fun began. It ended with a bullet hole in the wall of my guest room, a knife thrown across the living room, and me loading animals into my car early the next morning and running for the Advocacy Center. A few visits from the police and a protection order later, he was gone. I have the pets, he has, I think, a new girlfriend he's living with, and I thought well, that's the end of it.

It is not the end of it.

I go to therapy, and I annoy the hell out of my friends with all the processing, and I have to say, people coming out of an abusive relationship really have no idea how to behave like normal citizens anymore. It's like I'm in a foreign country. Or on another planet. Dealing with people? Not even a clue as to how to begin. I can't have normal conversations anymore. I can't socialize normally anymore. Every social engagement is riddled with extreme anxiety. I can't even deal with my neighbors. When I see them, I pretend they aren't there, or I run into the house to avoid speaking to them. Painting and writing? Forget it. Creativity is blocked. I've started several paintings I never finished, and I trashed them. I keep opening my laptop to write and give up after one paragraph. I have a sketchbook filled with half-finished drawings, and a blanket I never finished knitting.

This is where the animals come in. All seven of them. Two of which I wouldn't even have had he not left them behind. That's how seriously fucked up this relationship was compared to the last ones. This one actually left behind pets and made my codependent menagerie even more codependent (and larger). They hate being away from me. I can't leave them alone for longer than four hours at a time (I mean, I do have to go to work). We all have severe separation anxiety. And I also believe it was a cruel joke on his part to ensure that I will never get into another relationship after him because really, who is going to get involved with a crazy woman with four dogs and three cats? Especially when said woman is so full of anxiety that she constantly assumes one or all of her animals are going to die from a stubbed toe or a minor stomach bug.

My vet bills have been through the roof. I have rushed Puckett to the vet three times for "respiratory issues" that turned out to be nothing. Her lungs are scarred from being alive so long, I was told. I've taken all four dogs' poop to the vet to be analyzed because everyone had the runs for three weeks straight. I thought they were dying of parasites. Turns out the stupid kibble I was feeding them was too rich and causing stomach problems. They are all back on Natural Balance and Fresh Pet. I rushed Murphy to the vet because he was having trouble peeing one afternoon. I immediately thought bladder stones or UTI. Two hundred dollars later, he went home with a clean bill of health and a report that he peed just fine there. This was after he'd been to the vet for holding his ears funny and scratching a lot. Yeah, he's over that too. I think his ear fringe was bothering him and getting in his eyes.

Colleen almost died on my watch when she choked on a piece of mulch, and I rushed her to emergency after-hours vet only to have them tell me the x-ray showed everything was clear and she must have coughed up the offending piece of wood or swallowed it. I had another large vet bill and a chewed-up finger from trying to dislodge the wood from her throat.

Kira has to go in this month for a broken tooth. It needs to be pulled or it will abscess and then I can have another meltdown.

I am a wreck.

And do I hide behind my animals? Of course I do. Do I use them as an excuse to skip social engagements and stay home? Absolutely.

The damage is very real, if invisible. There are no bruises, no broken bones. I never had to wear sunglasses or long-sleeved shirts or anything like that. But I no longer trust my own intuition. I overreact to silly things and avoid situations where even the slightest potential for harm may lie. I let complete strangers on the Internet hurt my feelings. I've been scammed by two e-commerce companies when in the past I always knew better. One I disputed. The second one I didn't even bother. Didn't even care anymore. I feel like I'm going crazy. I don't believe what used to be my own truth anymore. I believe others' opinions about me and don't question motives. The motives are all to hurt and damage. I assume the worst and believe I deserve it. I don't believe I deserve a second chance. I don't believe I'm good enough for anyone or anything. I don't feel safe. The world is a frightening place, and I have no idea how to navigate it. I am both furious with God and also terrified at whatever else he might throw at me. That saying that God only gives you what you can handle is bullshit. And I don't even have it that bad. Other people are in way worse situations. That's the guilt.

And everyone thinks now that I'm out of the relationship, now that he's gone, I'm free to be "me" again. Do the things I used to, go out and socialize, be happy and fun again. Well, that "me" no longer exists. 

So when my friends and family make the comment that I am overworked and perhaps seven animals are too many, they are not wrong. I am drowning in a sea of animal care. But here's the secret. On the one hand I can't rehome any of them because I've grown attached to all of them (and several of them are too old to rehome anyway). On the other hand, they give me the perfect excuse not to move on with my life. It's impossible to do so with so many animals, and it's also impossible to not have them, to not care for them. 

They are at once my sanctuary and my prison. 

Murphy has the right idea. Hide.

Suicide Puppy

I think Joy is trying to get herself killed, either by suicide or by infuriating the rest of us to the point of murder.

For example, when Joy was three months old, she got into the bathroom trash. I found her on her dog bed with a string hanging out of her mouth. Being a new puppy mom, I, of course, panicked. I wrestled her to the ground while she howled and screamed and pulled the string out of her mouth. She had swallowed a used tampon, and the only thing that saved her was the fact that the string still hung out of her mouth.

Luckily I was able to pull it out.

We were both traumatized. She thought I was torturing her and I was holding her down, pulling a string, and screaming, "No, I won't let you die!"

The next potential death sentence was handed out around seven or eight months when I had just adopted Spencer. I'm still not sure how this whole thing went down, but once again I found Joy on her dog bed, chomping on something. I pried her mouth open (while she screamed and yelped and struggled) to find a thumbtack under her tongue.

A thumbtack!

The only thumbtack in my entire house was the one I used to hang a very small cross stitch picture on the wall above my craft desk. My craft desk is downstairs in my living room, blocked off by a gate. The dogs are not able to get downstairs because I don't want them down there without me. Things like precious stuffed animals, heirlooms, and thumbtacks exist downstairs.

And the TV. Believe me, you break my expensive Smart TV there will be tears.

I found the cross stitch on the floor in the kitchen, and I deduced that the only culprit could be Spencer. Somehow he had dragged the cross stitch, thumbtack and all, upstairs, played briefly with the thumbtack, and then passed it off to Joy so she could kill herself.

This is the first time the kitten has tried to kill Joy.

The second time involved a stuffed Wampa.

You read that right.

I have this adorable stuffed Wampa I bought at Barnes and Noble a few years ago. He was sitting on my table, far back enough where Joy couldn't get to him. One night I heard Spencer batting something around, and I just assumed he'd found some trinket to play with. He has a toy box full of toys, but he'd rather pay with a piece of lint, or, for some odd reason, my foil wrapped chocolates. I took the trinket from him and was momentarily confused. It looked like a round black button with teethmarks. I went upstairs and found Joy on her bed with the mutilated Wampa by her side, missing a nose.

I cried, "My Wampa!"

Joy stared at me with big, innocent puppy eyes, unaware that the piece of plastic she'd been chewing on before Spencer commandeered it for his own toy could have choked her, or caused her to need surgery.

I snatched away the Wampa, and examined him for damage.

Other than the nose and being covered in drool, he really wasn't too worse for wear. One trip through the washing machine and a trip to my friend, the seamstress soon put him to rights.

He now sits on my desk in my office, well out of harm's way.

Again I deduced Spencer as the culprit. He must have pushed the Wampa off the table, Joy got a hold of it, chewed off the nose, and the rest was putting me through trauma as I once again felt like a dog mom failure having not dog proofed the house well enough.

Plastic does seem to be Joy's preference, and if she can make it a particularly dangerous bit of plastic, so much the better. This next time I was sure I had everything that could kill her safely tucked away. I have that gate blocking the downstairs, and I put up a baby gate in the bedroom to keep her out when I can't watch her.

Well, that sure doesn't stop Spencer. Another day I again found him playing with a tiny piece of plastic that I couldn't recognize at first. It turned out to be half a plastic shoe off of a beautiful doll I keep in my bedroom. The gate was up, so Joy couldn't get into the bedroom, so where was the other half of the shoe?

It was in pieces on, you guessed it, Joy's bed. Chewed up, a drooly mess. I took a deep breath counted to ten, and swatted Spencer with the stern reprimand of, "Stop trying to kill the dog!" Here's how this must have happened. Spencer jumped over the gate to get into the bedroom, found the shoe (he had to go digging under the doll for it, mind you) and carried it back over the gate where he left it for Joy to chew up. Then he played with the rest. I put the other shoe in my bedside drawer, but left the doll where she was. Five minutes later I caught Spencer on the dresser, digging under her dress.

I yelled. He fled.

How Joy has not killed herself with sharp plastic objects yet, I do not know. But Spencer sure seems to get a kick out of purposely bringing her plastic pieces to chew up and play Russian Roulette with her life.

The last incident where Joy almost lost her life, was my own fault. I can't blame the cat this time. I had bought several dahlias and calibrachoa flowers to get a kickstart on the season. I was only going to plant one planter that I can take inside at night so the flowers won't freeze. I couldn't resist. Those dahlias were so pretty, I just had to have them. My best friend and I spent a Friday afternoon planting the flowers, and then I placed the planter on the deck next to my geraniums. Geraniums, I might add, that have sat there for a few weeks now, completely unmolested by the puppy.

You know what's coming.

My friend and I went out for couple of hours. We came home to feed the dogs.

My back deck looked like a war zone. Pink and green strewn everywhere. Piles of potting soil tracked across the deck and down the stairs. The calibrachoa was chewed up and lay in clumps around the yard, but the dahlias were nowhere to be found. I assume they made a fine snack for Joy.

At that point, there was nothing left to do but sit on the steps and cry. Which I did. My friend stood next to me, patting my shoulder, hugging me while I sobbed at the loss of my flowers. I think it had more to do with flowers, of course. I can always get more. Joy has just been such a disaster lately, really all I can do sometimes is look at her and weep. I was at the end of my rope. And I threatened soon Joy would be at the end of a rope as well.

I'm kidding of course.

I sincerely hope dahlias are not poisonous to puppies.

A quick search of the Internet shows that they can cause mild gastrointestinal stress in dogs. Well, that explains the piles of green bedecked poop Joy has been leaving me these last few days. She has been eating grass like a fiend. I guess she did have an upset tummy, though I sure couldn't tell the way she hoovers her meals, her treats, her own poop, and of course plastic pieces.

I'm really not a bad pet owner. I really do try to puppy proof as well as I can and I never thought she would dig through the flower pot as she has never done this before. I also never thought the kitten would constantly find items to bring to the puppy that she could potentially choke on. I keep potentially harmful things away from the puppy. I can't believe I have a kitten who actually brings them to her since she can't get to them herself. My other two cats don't do this. And Tess is old so I haven't had to worry about any of this with her for years.

My friend joked that we should get Joy a tag that reads "Ruiner of nice things" on one side, and "The Meg" on the other.

I hope Joy outgrows this phase of constantly looking for new ways to accidentally kill herself soon. I don't think the rest of us can take the trauma or the guilt.



This seemed an appropriate badge to get for Joy. I haven't yet inscribed "The Meg" on it.

Pet Barometers

Pets really are the barometers for your emotional life.

When I was at my lowest, depressed and anxious and crying all the time, my animals moped around the house, acting like the world was ending. In their defense - and mine - we were all grieving over the loss of Percy, at least partially. Tess and Puckett missed their friend, banishing themselves to a corner of the room to sleep and lie around. Puckett was the least active, as I still occasionally made Tess go out for a walk on nice days. We didn't have the same pep and joy in our walks though. I walked because it was necessary. Tess sniffed and peed on trees and bushes, but her heart didn't seem in it. Puckett spent hours curled up in the same spot next to the heater, emerging only to use the box and eat, and even eating seemed like a chore for her.

It wasn't until I had the wild hair to adopt a puppy and kitten that sort of pepped everyone up, mostly because they had no choice. Joy bounced around Tess constantly, trying to get her to play. She was like a pogo stick: "Pat attention to me! Pay attention to me! Pay attention to me!" And what could poor Tess do, other than sigh in resignation and play with her, knowing that otherwise Joy would never leave her alone?

And Spencer, well, Spencer just adds all kinds of life. Willow was never a fan of Percy's and I don't think she was too heartbroken over his death. She did, however, pick up on the mood of everyone else in the house and spent most of her days sleeping, like Puckett. She was more inclined to eat and sack out on the bed with me, because Willow is clingy and not an isolator. Puckett's isolating worried me a bit. She's normally a confident, happy, social cat.

Here came Spencer, and suddenly Puckett is acting like a kitten again. Even Willow has started playing with him if he's not too pushy and insistent. The three of them chase each other through the house, they roll across the floor sounding like they're killing each other in play fight, and suddenly at night I have three cats on the bed instead of just one. Puckett nestles right up beside me by the pillows, Willow sleeps at the foot of the bed, and Spencer sacks out on my legs. He eventually goes downstairs or under the bed (or joins Joy in her kennel or Tess on her dog bed), but at the beginning of the night everyone is all huddled together

I am no longer in deep depression and the animals aren't either. And my new relationship is so different from the last one, I don't think any of us know how to navigate it besides Joy and Spencer.

We're all happy and it's weird.

I hate to say that, really. Have I been so jaded and treated badly that I no longer recognize what being happy or feeling joy is?

Maybe that's why I named the puppy "Joy" though "Jaws" really seems to suit her better. If she was bigger I'd call her the Meg. But I digress.

My therapist is having a field day with me because I told her a few months ago that I was done dating. I'm not putting in the work anymore, and I have no energy for the endless online surfing, meeting for coffee, navigating whether we like each other, and going out on actual dates. The thought of going back online exhausted me, and I kept coming up with reasons not to. I still wanted a relationship, but if I was going down that road again he would basically have to show up on my doorstep, because I'm not looking anymore. Also my sex drive was in the toilet anyway, so I wasn't really motivated to go out looking for someone.

A month ago, he actually did show up on my doorstep. I was working in my front garden, pulling weeds and getting the bed ready for planting. This car rolled up, a guy got out, and at first I thought he was lost and asking for directions when he walked up to me. Instead he told me he'd seen me walking my dogs in the neighborhood because he works just down the street, and then I did remember exchanging a few words with him a couple of times in the early mornings when I walked. He asked me to dinner, and it took me a second. I almost said no, but changed my mind and suggested we meet for coffee instead. See how we like each other.

Turns out we like each other a lot. And the animals like him too. He even likes the cats. And I like his dog (those who remember the last one's dog will probably find that humorous) and his dog likes me. And the dogs all like each other. We took them for a walk the other day, all three of them, and Tess came out of her shell like she hasn't in a couple years. She ran and played and there was a bit of tension when she made sure that the new dog understood she is alpha, but after that everyone was friends. Joy will get along with anyone as long as they don't try to eat her. She just wants to play. Tess was a puppy again. And as far as her personality, the new dog is sweet and bouncy, energetic but disciplined. She actually listens. And God love her she stays off the furniture. Mostly.

I don't really have a physical type when it comes to men, but if I did, he's it. Short and cute but built like a little Jason Statham. I like them short. I've never been one of those women who refuses to date a guy under six feet tall. I'm more like please be under five feet ten!

And he's so nice. It's weird. I'm used to getting yelled at for the smallest, stupidest little things (like not texting first in the morning), or remaining friends with the Cowboy, or heaven forbid allowing the Cowboy to do stuff to my house like he has been for years, and this guy is just like "Cool." About everything. Nothing fazes him. The other night he turned to me and said "I like you. You make me happy." And I kept waiting for the "But" like "But I feel like I'm doing more work in this relationship than you are." Nope, he stopped talking after he said I made him happy and kissed my nose.

If Tess feels like a puppy again, I'm pretty sure I feel like a teenager again. We kind of make other people sick. We're that couple making out on the sidewalk, or holding hands in Walmart of all places, or gazing into each others' eyes at the wine bar, and I have never been into PDA's. Will it last? I don't know. I hope so. He says he plans to stick around for a while, if I let him. He's pretty easy to be around. He doesn't get mad easily, he's clean, he likes things neat, he doesn't drink. I'm a skeptic by nature, but he seems to be just what the doctor ordered. I have no complaints so far.

Cats and books! Happiness abound.

How Quickly Things Change

A line from the TV show, Frasier, leapt out at me when I was binge-watching eleven seasons in a depressed state of "My life will never be exciting again." Frasier was going through a similar phase of being stuck in a rut while his brother, Niles, was married to Daphne and expecting a child, and Marty was dating beautiful, younger Wendie Malik, having the time of his life. Marty gave him some fatherly advice with, "Take it from me. Just when you think nothing exciting will ever happen to you again, that's when it does."

And I have to say, he sure said a mouthful.

Status quo for me for the longest time was go to work, come home, veg out in front of the TV or read a book, repeat. I shook things up when I adopted Joy, but my life revolved around her for several months as I got her into a routine and tried to keep her from eating the house. While she's not as destructive as some dogs, (I know someone with a pit bull puppy the same age who tore the dryer door off. I mean, just ripped it off. And someone else with a lab puppy about the same age who was so totally out of control they had to rehome him) the list of things she's chewed are as follows:

• Two mugo pines
• A tree sapling
• A dog bowl
• Piles of mulch
• One of the outdoor water bins
• Two planters
• Multiple dog toys and bones
• The lawn chair the Cowboy made for me a few years ago
• The corners off the doghouse

But I have to say, she has never eaten a shoe, she never got into underwear, she leaves my stuffed animals alone (Tess was obsessed with stuffed animals when she was younger), and she has never chewed the furniture.

Spencer makes up for that by scratching the furniture, but I digress.

It is a full time job caring for a puppy.

Joy is nine months old now, and she is a holy terror. She is deep in her teenaged rebellious phase to the point where she no longer listens to me or Tess. She has regressed to jumping on the door and me, barking, throwing a tantrum whenever her paws get wiped, not waiting for her release word to eat, and generally ignoring me and my commands as if I'm just the annoying mother who doesn't understand what it's like to be her age.

She's right, I probably don't. I don't remember what it's like to be in my twenties.

Thank God for that.

Joy goes to puppy class, she gets regular walks, she has rules and discipline as Cesar Millan suggests, and Tess has been showing her teeth an awful lot lately. Nothing works at the moment.

Needless to say life is very exciting again.

I came home for lunch the other day, and went outside to check on the dogs. I am now used to the piles of mugo pine branches littering the yard. The harsh winter destroyed them anyway, so I'm going to dig them up and replace them with rose bushes. Meanwhile they are Joy's favorite chew toys. This particular day she had somehow managed to drag one of the large water bins (filled with water) across the yard, and stuffed it in the dog house. I actually stood in the yard, looking for the bin, turned around and saw it just sitting in the dog house. It took a minute for my brain to register, "The water bin is in the dog house. What the hell? How did it get there?" It is wider than the doorway to the dog house. I have to say I'm impressed with the determination and problem solving skills it takes to shove a large heavy duty plastic bin into a dog house.

Then there was the weeklong phase of eating straight up cat litter out of the box. Now, every dog I've ever owned has gotten in the cat litter at least once to eat cat poop. That's just what dogs do. Joy, however, didn't care if there was poop or not. I walked in the bedroom one evening (I keep an extra box there for Willow, Miss Fussypants), and the entire box had been sucked clean of litter. Joy trotted out of the bedroom and immediately barfed it all back up again on her dog bed. Piles of it. Just clumps of straight up litter. That could not have felt good coming back up. She spent the rest of the night hacking and wheezing because my cat litter is made of grass seed. It's not as dusty as some, but it's coarse and I'm sure it couldn't have felt good.

So what did she do two days later? The exact same thing. Hoovered the box, and immediately, not even thirty seconds later, barfed it all back up again. Second time's the charm. She stopped after that. Hasn't bothered the box since.

Her new favorite thing to do is trap Spencer between her paws and chew on his head. This isn't as bad as it sounds. She doesn't hurt him, and there is no blood or yowling. He eventually has enough and escapes, hiding under the bed. And what does he do five minutes later? Comes back out and lets her trap him again. It is a little disconcerting to walk into a room and see a German shepherd with a small black cat between her paws just going to town on his head. If one didn't know any better one would think she was killing him.

It's like Tess and Percy reincarnated. Spencer is almost identical to Percy. He looks like him, minus the fangs. Instead he has a kink in his tail. He plays with Joy the way Percy used to play with Tess. And he's such a little asshole. Scratches the furniture, flings litter everywhere, plays with his food and leaves a trail of kibble all over the kitchen floor, poops in the box as soon as I've cleaned it, lies in wait for Willow and pounces on her when she walks by. The difference is that Willow isn't afraid of Spencer like she was Percy, and gives back as good as she gets. Then he races through the house like a herd of stampeding elephants, chirping and trilling. He is absolutely the cutest thing in the world.

I feel like maybe they've opened the door to allow new and different things to come into my life. I'm baking and making chocolates again, and while it's not going very smoothly, I will be selling some at a craft fair. I'm working on my novel like a fiend. I've started drawing and painting again. I've even started dating again, but that's a story for the next blog, as it's kind of a fun little story on its own.

This morning, my new friend walked into the hallway and said, "You locked that cat in the kennel with Joy last night. They're both just staring at me." I started to laugh. Spencer likes to slip through the small hole in the dog kennel and sleep in there periodically, but he's never gone in there at night with Joy before. The two of them just sitting there staring out of the kennel was just so funny, and it confirmed that adopting Spencer was the right thing to do. I adopted him for Joy and they are clearly starting to bond.

And yes, everyone is as codependent as ever. Last night I had two cats on the bed, one under the bed, Joy on the dog bed at the foot of the bed, and Tess sacked out beside it.

Things really can change in a blink of an eye.

Joy and Spencer both in a rare state of being still.

I absolutely love this image of Willow.



This is my favorite picture of Tess and Puckett. My two old girls, enjoying some bonding time.