Where do I start? How about the title. I was going to call it I\u00a0Hate Dogs, A Story of Loving, but then I thought that might be too ambiguous. And then I either said this or heard this recently and bam –\u00a0a better title. It’s all about the ambiguity it seems. At least until I can\u00a0provide more detail. And\u00a0this miserable monologue just might do that.<\/p>\n
I didn’t grow up with a dog. I remember as a toddler that we\u00a0briefly had a dog. My dad chasing after it as is it ran\u00a0away.\u00a0But, I’m not sure how that was so as my dad is allergic to dogs.\u00a0He makes it seem like he’s\u00a0deathly allergic,\u00a0but that’s not true. We’ve had a dog or two run through the house and he never\u00a0knew – or had a symptom. But, if you tell him they have dogs, then the visit is cut\u00a0short or\u00a0doesn’t happen. So, no dogs. A bird\u00a0yes – around age 13. That was my first real pet. Pretty\u00a0Boy we called him. Mainly because we wanted him to say\u00a0“pretty boy,” but he\/she never did. It’s tough to tell the sex of a bird. We had Pretty Boy a long time; long enough for me to graduate and go off to college. He died after that. Something\u00a0about an\u00a0egg stuck inside her. At least\u00a0we finally learned her sex.<\/p>\n
So, dogs. No dogs growing up. But, I knew about dogs. And\u00a0yet,\u00a0my experience was not good. I was a paper boy. I also sold newspaper subscriptions door to door. I learned to put my foot in front of the screen door in case a dog charged it when I ran the door bell. So, you could say I learned to be afraid of dogs. And being a paper boy didn’t help either. I learned my route. I knew to be careful of certain yards. But, I do remember one house that always stank. I think it was because they had dogs. At least, that’s what I told myself.\u00a0And so I\u00a0vowed not to let that happen to me – to live in\u00a0a house that stank.<\/p>\n
Once I took the job of babysitting some\u00a0dogs. Poodles. Two. They belonged to\u00a0the neighbors and I was given a key to feed them\u00a0and check on them. Their food was prepared and stored in the freezer. Fancy food. I got paid.\u00a0After a few days I had to clean up some mistakes on the floor. I think they were potty trained as I don’t recall having to walk them. But\u00a0then they started\u00a0hiding under the furniture. I tried to get them out and they nipped at me.\u00a0Their eyes reflected red light and they growled. I was scared. Then\u00a0upset. Then angry. Stupid\u00a0crazy dogs. I was so nice to them.<\/p>\n
And\u00a0so years\u00a0went by. I\u00a0met\u00a0a girl in college – in another state – via the Internet before it was the Internet (that’s another story).\u00a0We moved in together. We got a dog. She graduated. The girl, not the dog. We moved to Florida – her mom’s house.\u00a0The\u00a0dog was a Jack Russell Terrier. I’m not good with knowing breeds, so give me credit for that. His name was Hammer. He had a heck\u00a0of a sex drive. We got him from a breeder. He\u00a0ran away too. Probably to um….breed. The name was\u00a0given by the breeder – a sign\u00a0we ignored.<\/p>\n
Let’s try another. Ok then. A small hairy dog. I don’t recall the name. We had an apartment by then. Two bedroom. But we were away a lot.\u00a0Work.\u00a0Etc. Still in our early 20’s. So, we gave it away – to someone with a\u00a0yard. We felt it was good for the dog. I don’t recall caring much one way\u00a0or another. That’ll probably come up in N.E.T. (neuro emotional technique – google it) some day. \u00a0So, now no dog. Instead, we\u00a0bought our first house. Kids arrived as they seem to do. Kids can be rude, once they learn\u00a0it from\u00a0their parents – or other kids in case the parents deny it.<\/p>\n
Do you know what I can’t walk down a\u00a0pet food\u00a0aisle in the grocery store? Well,\u00a0I could, but I don’t. I’m not allergic. I just don’t like the smell of\u00a0pet food. Maybe because it reminds me of that stinky\u00a0house. And yet, I’m ok with a pet store or\u00a0a pet shelter.<\/p>\n
I’m going to stop for now before this gets too long. Blogs should be fairly short right? But, I’ll be back later to tell you the real reason I’m writing this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Where do I start? How about the title. I was going to call it I\u00a0Hate Dogs, A Story of Loving, but then I thought that might be too ambiguous. And then I either said this or heard this recently and bam –\u00a0a better title. It’s all about the ambiguity it …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dogs-are-never-rude"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericstechblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericstechblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericstechblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericstechblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericstechblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ericstechblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":586,"href":"https:\/\/ericstechblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583\/revisions\/586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericstechblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericstechblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericstechblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}