What's in a family part 1 - the dog
I got to thinking about families the other day, maybe from the nice article mom passed along to me about connected families through surrogate parenthood.
I know extended family really well - especially the kooky bits and if you are part of my extended family or have hung around with us for a nanosecond then you probably know what I mean.
But my nuclear family.. well that's different. I guess in some ways I never really felt like I've grown up and cannot imagine that I am a matriarch of a little family in charge of making these two young kids into responsible adults. yeesh.
And then there are the dogs.
I got Molly, my crazy husky shepherd, a couple of months after Mike and I started dating, and literally a month before I became pregnant with C. Mike has told anyone who would listen that he had no say in the matter and did not want this dog. Given my track record with men to that point I figured the dog would outlast him by at least a decade.
Molly is ...special... she barks and growls at doors when the wind pushes them in their hinges. She has a thing with wind. when it is really windy in the middle of the night she has to go out and stare...at something...the mother ship?...the wind gods who whisper to her?...who knows.
She can sit there for an hour in the middle of the night - this coming from a dog who hates night time and won't go for walks in the dark if she can help it.
Other things set her off too - riding in a car, thunder, hockey pucks against a rink wall, skateboards, loud bangs of any kind. All this to say that living with her these past 8 years has been hard, very hard. she takes the stess level to an amber.
So we had left her with my folks for a few weeks while we moved out here. The peacefullness of the house, and minuit - our black poodle - was fantastic. Things were calm and the workers even remarked on how quiet minuit was.
so it was with alot of angst that I went back to ottawa to figure out what to do with Molly. Mom and dad kept telling me how wonderful she was, so quiet so calm, but no they would not keep her for me.
I sat there for 3 days trying to figure out what to do with this dog who had been part of our lives for 8 years. I'm the type who rescues dogs from evil owners who get rid of them and suddenly I had become one of these owners - trying to figure out how to get rid of her.
Mike phoned the friends of abandoned pets and they said they'd take her back and I lost it.
So two days later a very drugged up Molly showed up at the airport for us to pick up and we went home - much poorer and full of trepidation at what would happen.
But that night I was reading the kids a James Herriot story about a farmer who gave up his old cow and then she broke free and came back and he stood there and looked at her and decided to keep her. All ended well in the James Herriot story and hopefully all will end well here too.
For better or worse - the damn dog is part of our family.
I know extended family really well - especially the kooky bits and if you are part of my extended family or have hung around with us for a nanosecond then you probably know what I mean.
But my nuclear family.. well that's different. I guess in some ways I never really felt like I've grown up and cannot imagine that I am a matriarch of a little family in charge of making these two young kids into responsible adults. yeesh.
And then there are the dogs.
I got Molly, my crazy husky shepherd, a couple of months after Mike and I started dating, and literally a month before I became pregnant with C. Mike has told anyone who would listen that he had no say in the matter and did not want this dog. Given my track record with men to that point I figured the dog would outlast him by at least a decade.
Molly is ...special... she barks and growls at doors when the wind pushes them in their hinges. She has a thing with wind. when it is really windy in the middle of the night she has to go out and stare...at something...the mother ship?...the wind gods who whisper to her?...who knows.
She can sit there for an hour in the middle of the night - this coming from a dog who hates night time and won't go for walks in the dark if she can help it.
Other things set her off too - riding in a car, thunder, hockey pucks against a rink wall, skateboards, loud bangs of any kind. All this to say that living with her these past 8 years has been hard, very hard. she takes the stess level to an amber.
So we had left her with my folks for a few weeks while we moved out here. The peacefullness of the house, and minuit - our black poodle - was fantastic. Things were calm and the workers even remarked on how quiet minuit was.
so it was with alot of angst that I went back to ottawa to figure out what to do with Molly. Mom and dad kept telling me how wonderful she was, so quiet so calm, but no they would not keep her for me.
I sat there for 3 days trying to figure out what to do with this dog who had been part of our lives for 8 years. I'm the type who rescues dogs from evil owners who get rid of them and suddenly I had become one of these owners - trying to figure out how to get rid of her.
Mike phoned the friends of abandoned pets and they said they'd take her back and I lost it.
So two days later a very drugged up Molly showed up at the airport for us to pick up and we went home - much poorer and full of trepidation at what would happen.
But that night I was reading the kids a James Herriot story about a farmer who gave up his old cow and then she broke free and came back and he stood there and looked at her and decided to keep her. All ended well in the James Herriot story and hopefully all will end well here too.
For better or worse - the damn dog is part of our family.
posted by ayearinhalifax | 9:27 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home