Suburban Bliss:: Birth Control Via The Written Word

The Dog Park!

We took Lucy to the Dog Park tonight. I'll admit I've been known to go to dog related events even when I didn't have a dog simply because watching dogs have SO MUCH FUN makes it impossible to remain unhappy. I think everyone should just sit around watching dogs having fun at least for the rest of the month of April. 

Luckily now I do have a dog so on a Monday night I can take my dog to the dog park. At the dog park I can watch her run around and have a great time sniffing butts. Without a dog that would be deemed, you know, a little odd. Now I can watch dogs sniffing each other's butts all I want. 

No really ALL I want.

But the butt sniffing at the dog park isn't really the part I love.

It's not even really the chasing either. Although she's pretty agile to watch.

And it's not watching Lucy make new friends, tentatively.

Sometimes, really tentatively. 

It's not even watching Lucy run around with my little boy, though that's a pretty lovable part.

No, the best part is watching my dog so happy. 

Watching her running around the park with so much joy makes me think of the first time I pushed my kids on the swings, their shrieks of laughter and pure joy at this new experience. 

Lucy at the dog park is pure joy. I'm glad I had kids first because if I hadn't had kids people might say, "Oh dogs are nothing, just wait until you have kids."

It's true raising a pup is a lot less complicated than raising kids. Lucy can grow up and still be a good being without ever flossing her teeth. Still, it's fun to relive those intense moments of simple happiness again with our dog. Without another college education to pay for. 

The other really great thing about the dog park? 

Exhaustion.

This post is part of our It’s Good To Give series, which is sponsored by Milk-Bone.  Check out their Canine Assistants program, which helps people with disabilities and get involved by sharing photos of your own dog on the Milk-Bone Flickr stream.

Warm, Fuzzy & Always Right.

When I put my mind to something, it usually gets done.

For example a few years ago I said to Logan, "This house has sucked our will to live long enough. We are going to sell it."

Oh he balked at the idea, "There's too much work to do!" "The market is terrible! Nothing's selling!"

But I ripped wall paper off walls, burning my hands in the process, I peed in a port-a-john on the driveway and showered at the Y, I painted miles and miles of trim.......and in the end we sold the house.

I've wanted a dog for a long time, at least as long as Maddie has, but I knew dogs were a lot of work so I would sort of throw the idea around in my head and then remember that I could barely handle the two kids I have.

Except finally this winter the idea came into my head and I realized everything sort of fit. It was time to get a dog.

The only problem was Logan.

Logan's reasons for not getting a dog at this time were as follows:

1) The cost.
2) The cats might not like a dog.
3) It will be hard.
4) He is a mean, cold person who is dead inside*

*I made that one up.

What Logan forgot though is how persuasive I am once I get a bee in my bonnet. So over the next seven days I waged a campaign to break down his defenses in regards to a dog.

My friend Alice found Lucy (then Princess Mia) on Petfinder.com when I threatened to just come and take her dog Charlie.

Finding Princess Mia upped my passionate pursuit of a dog for our family. She kind of caught my attention quickly. I can't explain exactly why, other than I am an obsessive person and she just looked like the kind of dog I could picture in our lives.

I systematically broke down each of Logan's points for not getting a dog.

We promised Maddie she would have a dog at some point in her childhood. We didn't say, "But only if it's not hard."

The cats were an unknown of course and I have to tell you cats who urinate in the house are a deal breaker for me so if they freaked, I knew I'd have trouble. I researched introducing dogs to resident cats and shared numerous links with Logan who, I suspect, didn't read a single word.

As for the cost of dog ownership, I admitted our budget is often quite slim with little wiggle room. However just the month before Logan's company gave back the 10% pay cut he'd gotten about a year earlier. Not that a dog costs 10% of our income to own, but I'd had getting the housekeepers back in our lives at the top of my ToDo list once we got our pay back. I agreed, to get a dog, I would forgo the housekeepers. I figured dogs can help clean. So far, this hasn't been the case.

Things got a little tense at certain points in the dog convincing process, mostly because I told the kids I was thinking it was time to get a dog and this resulted in Logan feeling "ganged up on".

To this point I countered, "Well hop on board Team Dog!"
(He wasn't amused.)

By that weekend Logan had agreed to visit Princess Mia/Lucy at an adoption event. I thought he'd melt at the sight of her, but he didn't. He was lukewarm at best.

However, he did agree to take her on for a "trial run" for a couple of weeks.

Two weeks later we adopted her officially and he still "Didn't Want A Dog"
Here he is not wanting the crap out of that dog:

(He is not breastfeeding the dog, but man, it looks like it.)

We've had Lucy for just over two months now and we're all pretty enamored with her. She's the perfect dog for our family at the perfect time.

The other day Logan said, while holding Lucy in his arms like a baby, "How did you know this was the right dog for us?"

And I said, "Well, it's just that I'm always right."

This post is part of our It’s Good To Give series, which is sponsored by Milk-Bone.  Check out their Canine Assistants program, which helps people with disabilities and get involved by sharing photos of your own dog on the Milk-Bone Flickr stream.