My Dogs Convinced Me

Articles

Julia Mechlin

My Dogs Convinced Me
Apr 21, 2004

My Dogs Convinced Me that I am a Crackhead and I don’t do Drugs!

I am the mother of three of the best (ugh uhmm) and cutest boys in the world. They are so fun and curious. My husband is my best friend and we love our life together, but WE ARE insane!

As if having three children, two cats, a Jenny (Guinea) Pig isn’t enough; we fell off the truck as it was taking a left turn into Smartville, last December. Someone at David’s office had free-to-a-good-home puppies.

When David first approached me about getting a puppy, I asked him if he was crazy because our life is full and wild enough. Then, the dirty bird sent me the digital pictures of the puppies to my email. There was a puppy that looked just like the good dog I had growing up; Gardner. He was named after the street we had lived on previously.

He was the dog that you could say, “Go to Grandmother’s house!” He would wind you through Cherokee Park, in Louisville, KY, five miles or so to my Grandmother’s back door, where he knew roast beef would be waiting for him. Grandmother loved Gardner as much as he loved her. Having a dog, that good, in your life can make the world a different place.

I have spent the last twenty years saying, “If only I could have another Gardner dog. I would be soooooo happy.” Gardner was half lab and half beagle and the cutest and best dog I ever had. A strong body like a lab; kind of squared up, with the short little legs of a beagle, the black saddle back and auburn red hair on the legs and face.

Gardner understood everything; he knew when you needed to snuggle, he knew how to make you laugh and take your mind off of yourself and your worries. He was a best friend to all of us. He played hide and go seek. He would go get us when we were playing at the creek and let us know it was time to go home.

He slept with us and even shared our pillows and got under the covers. Looking back I question my reality some times because it doesn’t seem possible he was such a good and real dog. I have actually asked other family members if they remembered him the same way because it seems so unbelievable.

He watched after us, he was our babysitter at times; like our nanny. Naturally, I have always wanted my children to have such a dog.

So David had sent me this email and there was darling little Gardner. It looked just like him; same face, same eyes, markings … the whole nine yards. I thought it was a miracle and certainly a sign and a gift from God above.

“Alright David, we NEED to get that one because he will be worth his weight in gold; so protective and good for our boys, but only if it is a boy because I am not as fond of female animals; they just aren’t as easy-going. AND, if it isn’t a boy, it is a sign that we shouldn’t get one!”

We decided to go look while our eldest son, Miles, was at school. We wanted to surprise him because the puppy was going to be a Christmas gift. It was the last day of school for the winter holiday. We headed out. David took his vacation at Christmas so we had gotten the directions to Ron’s house and we were excited to go take look.

Not only did the directions (that David had written down) not worked, we ended up lost FOREVER! We were found ourselves in the real Twilight Zone with one country field after another. The frightening part was some things matched exactly as the directions, and other parts were like we were in another dimension and the area had no relevance.

In the back of my mind was Miles coming home to an empty house with his goofy parent’s lost in English, Indiana somewhere looking for a D-O- G!! What in the world was I thinking??? This was a sign; we already had enough excitement in our lives with our one year old and a three year old, Brighton and Mason.

When we finally decided to turn back and turn down a possible road … and one where we could get cellular reception, “Can you hear me now?!? Can you hear me now?!? Can you hear me now?!? Can you hear me now?!” was echoing in my mind as David interrogated Ron for reasoning and directions, turn after turn, mile after mile.

I wanted to grab that cell phone and throw it out into a field and scream, “Alright God, what is your point? I have a nine-year-old son who is going to be at home alone, we have been lost all morning, and 3:30 PM is rapidly approaching. AND we can’t even get cellular reception to let him know we will be right home as soon as we can, and to go to Barbara’s across the street until we get there!”

I knew David was ready to kill me because I was growing more and more agitated worrying about Miles coming home to NO parents for a dog that we had NO business getting!!

I was foaming at the mouth, steaming and snapping every naggity comment anyone could whip out of his or her frothing mouth. I couldn’t stand myself. I was hungry, tired, worried, lost and the minutes were ticking away as loudly as my heart beat. It was turning into a sleigh ride to hell and maybe even divorce ride to hell, too.

When we got there Stanley wasn’t a boy. I said, “Oh, well, she is just as cute and I can tell she is going to be a good dog.” See, I had lost my mind, but I also felt like I wasn’t going through the past two and a half hours lost and nearly divorced for NO puppy. Meanwhile, David never lost his cool, as usual, which sometimes drives me even more crazy. He just takes everything in stride and goes somewhere else to Never Never land and ignores me when I am insane. I do always apologize for loosing me sense of humor and let him know how much I appreciate him for who he is and what a decent and honorable person he is while I am being five years old.

It was a matter of pride at that point. There would be a puppy if it were a mongrel from the bowels of hell. Even if it was one legged and I had to carrying it around all the time … this drive and situation wasn’t going to be for nothing. Pride; P-R-I-D-E!

We talked with Ron for a while. His wife chased puppies around. She was crawling in and out of bushes trying to catch them. She had wet hair, in the cold of winter; she had been through a life-threatening illness, recently. I definitely had to take at least one puppy. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if she caught pneumonia over trying to help US find a puppy.

One thing leads to another and I said pointing to some of the other puppies, “Oh David, look those look like Boxers don’t they? Look at their markings. They are going to be a little bigger, I bet. Look how meaty they are! That is exactly what you have always wanted; a Boxer. Maybe we should get one of them instead.” It felt like such a miracle; they were muts, and Beagle muts at that, which I prefer to full bred, AND there was a Gardner and a Boxer-like dog.

I could tell David was really sick of me and was on the edge of his emotional seat. I felt terribly, but I have such a fear of being lost within a small window of time and quite a drive ahead of us and a child alone on the other side of that window.

“No, lets get this one, it is the one you want and it does look like your Gardner, where are we going to ever find that again?” I said, “Well, how about we get them both?!” … BECAUSE I AM A CRACK HEAD!!

We chose the darling little boxer-looking puppy with the black face, the tan coat and the white chest. He was so cute, just like a teddy bear, our Frank. Not just one puppy, but TWO! That was more evidence that I was secretly a crack addict, and I hadn’t bothered to tell myself. I hadn’t gotten Mason, the three year old potty trained; so I had two in diapers and two dogs to potty train. I was a poop surgeon; doing poop-ectomies and clean-ups all of the time for four beings, instead of just two.

We asked Ron about the puppies and remarked they were all so different. He had told us there were many different studs around. He mentioned a Great Dane, some Sheppards, “…the dogs with the alcohol around their necks to rescue you … Oh so many, who knows?”

David and I had decided to rule a Great Dane out because the mother was a beagle and that was pretty obvious. We shook our heads. We laughed in the van on the way home, “Well, at least we know they aren’t Great Danes, you know that can’t happen! That mother was just a little Beagle, no waaaaay.”

I knew that dogs had four uteruses and could have multiple studs, but I had no idea how differently puppies could turn out to be. She was a total tramp, a vixon, a loosey goosey!

Oh, it wasn’t so bad at first. They were so cute. We took them home and bathed them, cuddled them. They were so timid and had such big brown eyes. They just wanted to be safe and loved. We knew we could do that.

The boys loved all over them and kissed them. The puppies would lay under the Christmas tree and sleep; just like something you would see in a picture, maybe even on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. The whole thing was such a warm, happy, family Christmas picture.

We began to smell urine, but we didn’t see it anywhere. We felt we had been successful and loving parents providing such a wonderful opportunity for our children. The urine was all over the tree skirt where they had been sleeping. It was okay. They were just puppies and we needed to take them out more often.

Potty training became more rigorous, “Come on, potty outside, let’s go, …” We went outside every hour, or as often as we could remember to do it. They always had to go. I think they urinated more than their body weight for the first two months of their lives, EVERYDAY!

We bought them little sweaters and leashes to match their little collars and took them across the street to meet our neighbors. Barbara answered the door with Andreas, her son, behind her.

Our puppies are a part of the family and we had to introduce them to everyone. “Ohhhhh they are so cute and adorable … we can’t wait to play with them and we will have to take them on our morning walks …”

Barb is my faithful walking buddy who keeps me on my toes. Thank goodness for her. I know myself well enough to know I have every excuse in the book waiting for why I can’t/don’t need exercise at 5:30 in the morning.

And within those two months Frank and Stanley’s growth rates began to contrast each other. Our little Stanley girl was a smaller dog and Frank was becoming a monster lap-dog. He thinks he is the cutest little cuddling teddy bear ever. He has NO idea.

“David, maybe he isn’t a boxer?” “I don’t know honey, what else could he be?”

My sister, Elaine, decided he must be a Bloodhound; so big and lanky at two and a half months. I thought, “Nooooooooo way, he isn’t going to be that big, but he does look goofy.”

Frank began itching so I decided to buy him the dog shampoo with oatmeal in it; in case he had sensitive skin. Remarkably the dog on the bottle looked just like Frank! We were laughing about how much his markings and face where just like our Frank and I became frozen and winded. Time must have stood still with me in it!

It was like an episode from Bewitched; I had spent my childhood praying to be able to do what Samantha did, but not like this! I don’t know how long I watch time stand still, but I found myself feeling weak and sickened, and couldn’t quite find the English words to communicate to Dave what I was thinking and seeing …

I could feel that my mouth was wide open because with every breath I took in my mouth felt dryer and dryer. My thoughts raced around in my head so fast you could hear them. It was growing exhausted from the mental sprint.

The dog on the bottle was a Great Dane!!! I had pictures of that little Beagle mom up on tree stumps, steps, large logs and I couldn’t stop the country dog-love thoughts. Dogs doing it everywhere all over the countryside and so mis- matched. What else, where else? I couldn’t stop thinking of all of the ways. Over and over in my head I couldn’t get it out of my mind. “What in the world did that look like? How in the world did they do that?”

I felt like a pervert, an obsessive pervert. I couldn’t stop imagining the great lengths that a Great Dane and a Beagle had to go through to “get together”. It was making me sick and the thoughts wouldn’t stop.

I finally got over all of the invading and explicit thoughts of my curiosity after a solid week or two and thought that I had finally come to terms with the fact that I was going to be alright and maybe even normal, until just before Easter.

Again, it was the dogs exposing me for being a full-fledge secretive crack addict. David and I found our selves in the backyard cleaning up ANOTHER one of their messes. What was I thinking suggesting two dogs? I must have NO life, what in the world is wrong with me?

Did you happen to notice the Easter Bunny was missing this year?

That is because he blew up in our back yard!!!

Frank and Stanley got him! It was a sunny day. It was truly remarkable. It was really the first day that seemed like spring. It was a bright, breezy and warm spring day. It was the essence of all things good and all things spring.

I had to go thinking again. You know, I shouldn’t do that. My sister, Elaine, has always told me that I think too much. I thought, “If I were a dog, I would love to lay on my bed in the sun and nap all day long.”

So, I took their bed outside. I just knew they were going to be so grateful and enjoy such a nice day lying in the sun. Later, when I was heading to the bathroom I looked out the window and had to do a double take. All over the backyard there were piles of snow!

I felt like I was loosing my mind because it was so nice that I was wearing shorts. David and I had been working on the kitchen, we had the windows open, the kids had been playing outside, we all were wearing shorts!! I yelled to David, “OH MY GOD! THOSE DOGS KILLED THE EASTER BUNNY!!”

I was so aggravated, as if we didn’t have enough going on with the kids, redoing the kitchen, and now I was completely sure, that we were for certain, Certified White Trash because our yard looked like a junk yard AGAIN because of those dogs and MORE ridiculous than usual. And when it isn’t the dogs it is the kids and their friends and all the toys WE THINK they need.

David and I headed outside. We knew it was going to take all of us to work on this one, Miles and Mason helped, too. Brighton just wondered around making more different messes.

I got the rake, we all got bags and started cleaning up Peter Cotton Tail. It was a sight. I can’t explain how frustrated I was, but as bad as it was I found humor in the fact that the dogs had done such a good job of being so bad. They were so thorough. They had to TRY to make this sort of mess.

I could imagine them both tugging and pulling on their bed pillow, smiling with their pearly whites showing with their growls of delightful terror. They were ruthless; the Easter Bunny didn’t have a chance.

I said to David, “You know they meant to do this don’t you?!” Just in case David had been too lost in thought about something else I thought I would clarify these acts of BAD DOG for him.

You know, if you say “Frank and Stan” fast enough it defines who they really are; monsters! They knew exactly what they were doing and they laughed their little doggy laughs the whole time! Can you imagine what was going through their minds?!?! I still don’t know how that dog bed had so much of that stuffing in it. I was wondering if they didn’t really get that Easter Bunny. The stuffing was a pale green and Easter- like.

“Oh, yeah,” Dave said, “the only way to make such a huge mess was to do it on purpose, and they had a really good time! I am going to make sure that they know that I know and I don’t appreciate it!”

I thought to myself, “Oh yeah, Big Daddy?” Uncle Mushy is what our nieces call Dave. Enough said.

The bad dogs had somehow managed to spread out this stuffing from their own dog bed so evenly and so thoroughly that it was about six inches apart all over the entire back yard, like giant puffy polka dots. We are still finding stray bunny parts in our bushes, our neighbor’s yards, under the mail box, in the tulips and here and there. It is unmistakable with the pale green puffy fluff.

That is right, I am a crazy Crack Head Mama who doesn’t have enough to do, and I just keep looking for more things to complicate my life. Everyone always says, “Enjoy this time in your life (child rearing years,) it doesn’t last long, and it will be gone before you know it.”

I don’t know what they were doing when they were raising children, but some of my days are an infinity of horrific messes and emotional disturbances. I just wonder when it is going to be bedtime by about 1 o’clock in the afternoon. And when I say, “Someone needs a nap …” I mean myself!

I just hope we all make it through these next several years and the boys all turn out to be semi-sane, but they are challenged with me as their mother. I guess as long as we don’t turn out mass murderers and junkies we will be doing all right. They do have challenges with parents like us who never have enough to do and just keep complicating their lives.

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About the author Julia Mechlin: I am a stay-at-home mother of three. We live in Southern Indiana, just across from my home; Louisville, KY. I love to learn and share what I know.

I studied Biology at the University of Louisville. I am a US Navy Veteran and was fortunate enough to live in Sardinia, Italy for a year.

I had not decided what it was that I wanted to be when I grew up until I decided to take my Grandmother's advice and write. I have had many adventures and experiences trying to figure out who I am and what I want to do, and appropriately, now I am ready to write about them.

I have completed my first book and I am currently seeking a publisher or literary agent. I am in the market. This book is about why we dont' get along because of our instincts and how- to get along by understanding who we are and where we came from.

I have many more books with a wide variety of topics in my head from Science Fiction, Self Help to Action Novels. I love to learn and I love adventures.

If anyone has any good suggestions, please feel free to send them my way. Email: juliamechlin1@aol.com

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