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Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Love Me Like My Dog Does Baby



I'm sure if you listen to country music on a semi-regular basis, you will have heard this song.

I myself am a dog lover. When I was about 9, my neighbors had an outdoor dog named Zoe. Unbeknownst to them, she was my dog. I took her on walks, gave her treats, played fetch with her, and begged my parents to let me have her. The begging and groveling process for a horse, dog, hamster or anything that had furr was probably a monthly occurrence for my parents, poor souls.

After finally being married for a few months, I shipped Evan off to Afghanistan with only one rule from him: I better not have a dog when he got home. Me? Want a dog? Nooooo.

But for real.
What's up with everyone trying to ruin my life dream of owning a furry companion here?

A few weeks before Christmas my soon-to-be brother-in-law found a little puppy, half frozen, tossed in a snow bank. I immediately schemed a plan. I was all alone, poor little Army wife needing something to fill my time. Ok, really there was no plan except the old stand-by of my 9 year old self: beg and grovel. PLEASE EVAN, PLLLEEAAASSSEEE!!!! Its my life dream!!! I won't ask for anything else! I won't even buy another pair of shoes for a year! (Ha. I know, we both knew that was a lie) PLLLEEEEAAASSSSEEEE!

Like the good man my husband is, he gave in to his crazy wife's pleas.
And then laughed in my face ear, when I had to stand outside in the sub-zero winter tundra that is Pennsylvania, to potty train the piss head.

Although there have been many, many moments of (impatient) me wanting to throw Scout out the door, hoping he would run away to another family, I really don't know what I would do without the massive beast. Even when I've yelled at him when I shouldn't have, he still loves me like it never happened. He might be huge, but he has the biggest heart to match. He gets stressed out easily, but will rip any box apart at the possibility of finding a "biscuit" inside. When you talk to him, he'll cock his head and listens with careful content. Most of the time he will answer back with his two, dog-talking cents. During the week I have to practically drag him out of bed, but I can promise you, Saturday morning (on my only day to sleep in) he will be nose to nose with me, giving me his best pitiful, chocolate brown-eyed stare to please get up so he...can go back to sleep in the living room.

What if we all tried to love other people the way dogs love us? I think we can all agree Hitler wasn't the nicest kid on the playground, and was...How do you say it?...one of the worst tyrants of the 20th Century.You have to be pretty consistently awful, even before you decided to wipe out an entire race, to win that title. 
Adolf had been given a German Shepherd named "Prinz." Right after World War I, during his years of poverty, he had been forced to give the dog up. However, she managed to escape and return to him. 
If that isn't an example of a dogs wavering devotion without judgement, I don't know what is.

 Dogs don't judge us if we're overweight, gay, straight, obsessive, depressed, religious, ignorant, old, dirty, anorexic, annoying, black, white, crippled, have a third nipple, or act downright rude. So the next time you scrunch up your nose at someone, or are quick to snap back to a nasty comment, don't. Take a minute to see them through a dogs eyes. "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." - John Watson

Obligatory montage of Scout


^
I bubble wrapped him and told him I was mailing him to Grandma's. He didn't think it was an awful idea.

New Halloween Costume

Napping: Exhibit A

Napping: Exhibit B

He really let me do this to him...and liked it. 

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