Friday, October 1, 2010

Runnin' with the pack

I am a dog person.  I am also a cat person, but if I have to choose (and that is unfortunately currently the case), dogs win every time.  Actually, I'm a sucker for most furry mammals, particularly when they are young.  Once I had an acquaintance tell me in her opinion I care more for animals than I do humans.  (At the time I counted her as a friend, but since we haven't seen each other in years and no longer communicate in any way, I have relegated her to acquaintance status.)  I'm sure she meant it as an insult, but I didn't take it that way because she was right.  Taking the animal kingdom as a whole and putting it up against humanity, I think animals are far more socialized and quite possibly more civilized.

But, back to the dogs.  Bud and I both grew up with dogs.  In 1982, as soon as we purchased our house, we began talking about getting A DOG (as in only one).  The fact that we currently have three and are planning to get a fourth shows just how far around the bend we have gone.  Growing up, our dogs were all mutts.  Mixed breed dogs are wonderful (we have two right now).  They seldom have the physical or mental issues caused by inbreeding purebreds.  They usually have friendly, outgoing personalities and often seem to love the world and everyone in it.  Neither Bud nor I had any experience with purebreds of any variety.  But, I wanted a Siberian Husky.  I'm a big fan of wolves and whole-heartedly support the wolf reintroduction programs.  I would never attempt to have a wolf as a pet; they are not domesticated animals and belong in the wild.  Huskies, on the other hand, are domesticated companion animals (well, that may be stretching it a bit), so a husky was what I wanted.  I had no information whatsoever about huskies, but didn't seem to think that was important.  A word of advice, if you plan to bring a dog into your home, do a little research first.

We found a seven month old female husky for sale under Pets in the want ads of the newspaper.  The woman was selling the dog because it belonged to her teenage son and he had discovered girls.  She warned him she would sell his dog if he didn't care for her, but lucky for us raging adolescent hormones won out and he continued to neglect the dog.  We got her for $50, which we thought was a steal as huskies generally start at around $300.  The teenager had already named the dog T.C.  His mother told us it was short for Too Cool.  We kept T.C. as the name for our precious new family member, but for us it turned out to be short for Trouble Coming.

T.C. was beautiful.  She had copperish colored red hair and bright blue eyes.  She was also Satan in a dogsuit.  We have since identified many of the characteristics of huskies and have learned to embrace their uniqueness.  At the time, however, we were completely unprepared for the antics of this dog.  The worst problem was T.C. was an escape artist.  We don't allow our dogs to run loose because we fear they will get hit by a car, shot by some idiot playing with guns (we live in the country) or stolen by someone involved in dog fighting.  It totally infuriates me to think about dog fighting, and I wish someone would let me have a baseball bat and about ten minutes alone with anyone who uses dogs for this purpose, but I can't stick my head in the sand (I don't think ostriches really do this) and pretend it doesn't happen.  Geez, what a run-on sentence!  So we don't let our dogs run loose.  T.C., on the other hand, was faster than kudzu growing (which will completely obscure anyone standing on a street corner in the south, before the light changes).  Any open gate or door was total temptation, and as she sped through the gap you could almost hear her singing Freebird.  But, T.C. loved cheese and rides in cars even more.  So, whenever she would take off on one of her whirlwind tours, we would grab a slice of cheese, jump in the car or truck, and ride around until we found her.  All we had to do was open the door and hold out the cheese.  She went for it every time.

I could go on and on about T.C. and the millions of ways she drove us bonkers.  She taught us a lot about huskies, and we decided we are just twisted enough to always want a husky in our lives (which may be a form of masochism).  If you are going to be owned by a husky, you better have a highly developed and totally warped sense of humor. We somehow managed to keep her with us until she was 13, arthritic, deaf and almost blind.  We have since discovered male huskies are not quite as lunatic as females, in most cases.  After T.C. we got Niki, who was a wonderful boy but died young from some mysterious ailment that baffled even the people at NC State School of Veterinary Medicine.  We currently are owned by Logan.  Logan is nine years old and we are pretending he will never grow old, but we know better.  Logan will not be our last husky.  When he goes, we'll get another.  You don't ever replace a dog, you just find another one to love.

I'll be gone this weekend, but there will be more dog stories and a few cat tales as I continue with this blog.  We have shared our lives with T.C., Shadow, Max, Porkchop (or Chop Head as our friend Antonia not so affectionately called her), Zeke, Niki, Hannah, Trixie, Logan, Bailey and Abby.  We've also had four cats; Alex (also known as Fat Al or Alexander the Great referring to his size), Pywackette (stolen from Pyewacket in Bell, Book and Candle), Samantha and Jason.  If you live your life in servitude to a ball of fur, you know exactly how rewarding and comical life can be.

1 comment:

  1. It's nice to see your dogs cause as much adventure in your life as mine do. I have 2 mutts we rescued, we'll have to swap dog tales someday. I said to a co-worker the other day my youngest dog (his name is Jack) is not a vegetable person. He looked at me like I was totally nuts reminding me my dog was not a person. I told him oh you dont know my dog!!

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