Heart Like a Dog

The Good, the Bad, and the Oh My God of living with dogs!

W.T.F. Wednesday

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Warning, you are about to enter……the Potty Mouth Zone.

If you know me, you should know I am prone to swearing.

Honestly, sometimes the ‘F’ word comes out of my mouth more often than not.  My husband was in the military, he’s finally (after 22 years of marriage) toned it down some, but in the beginning it wouldn’t be out of the norm for him to say, “Pass the f***ing” salt.  It was one of his bad habits that I picked up. 🙁

Oh I try, I really do but to me, the ‘F’ word can really make a statement much more powerful.

One of my favorite examples is Custer’s last stand. When you compare these two sayings, I think it’s very clear which one is more powerful.

Custer, “Where did all those Indians come from?”

OR

Custer, “Where did all those f***ing Indians come from?”

You get my point?

Sometimes I like to use the military terminology, “Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot” but most of the time “What the f***” is what comes out.  Of course if I’m texting, it’s WTF.

Basically I decided to take a play on Wordless Wednesday and change it to WTF Wednesday.  It may be a weekly post or it may just be an occasional one, I’m not sure yet.  But what inspired it was some news stories regarding animals I’ve seen in the last week.

Mitt Romney

Usually I don’t watch the news, I find it too disturbing, which is probably why I missed the Mitt Romney story when he ran for office in 2008.  If you haven’t heard about it (were you under the same rock as me?) you can read the whole article here.  The gist of it is, he put his dog in a crate and strapped it to the roof of his car and drove for 12 hours.

From what I can gather, he did this quite often and both he and his wife swear that the dog liked it.  Except for the time the dog was sick and messed all over the car.  According to Mrs. Romney it was because the dog got into some turkey on the counter and the dog had the ‘runs,’ and had absolutely nothing to do with cars and tractor-trailer trucks flying by them on the highway, while he was strapped in a crate to the luggage rack, and the  luggage rode comfortably inside the car.

The incident took place about 30 years ago, and I realize it was a different time and animals were treated differently but Mitt, WTF?  Really?

Then as if I wasn’t mad enough his response when asked if he’d do it again was, “Certainly not with the attention it’s received.”

Ok, so what you’re saying is if people didn’t know and react negatively, you’d do it again?

Again Mitt, WTF?

Then I started thinking (tongue in cheek) maybe this wouldn’t be such a bad trait to have in a president.  If terrorist were to say….take his wife or one of his children hostage and they let’s say…..shit their pants, well he certainly wouldn’t bend.

He would simply say, they liked being held hostage.  He could take all the emotion out of the situation.

Man Pulls Horse Behind Truck

Yes it happened in CT about 20 minutes from where I live.  I saw it on my facebook news feed and was totally disgusted.  After reading the article I could follow the old guy’s reasoning but still old guy, WTF?

You don’t drag ANY living thing behind a f***ing truck!!

That’s it for my WTF Wednesday.  What did you think?  Siriously, if you hate it, I won’t do it again.

The Dogs Got Out….I'm So Done

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Relax, it’s not my dogs.

I saw this on a friend’s facebook page.  In the comments she said she was thinking about adopting one of her dogs out.

Seems her two dogs are jumping the 6 foot fence to get to the Boxer next door, and this is ticking off the neighbors.

I went to her page and left a comment, oh and of course  I threw in a shameless promotion of this blog, by posting a link and asking her if she read it.

Later in the evening we had a facebook chat and I found out, the dogs don’t jump the fence when someone is outside with them.  Hmmm this means you would always have to be outside with your dogs, which in my opinion is counter-productive to having a fenced in yard.

She said she was the primary care-giver seeing she was home during the day, and she was frustrated.  It had been a bad day.  I told her I could relate to that and posted a link to my Defeated and Lost post.

I suggested tethering the dogs when she wasn’t able to be outside with them.  I also told her I would throw the problem out to my readers and see if any of you had any suggestions.

Last night when I signed on we chatted again.  She had spoken with her husband and they were going to invest in an electric fence.  Her husband has installed and used electric fences before.

I totally forgot about how we solved our problems last winter with Delilah going over our fence.

In the winter of 2010/2011 New England got smacked with gobs and gobs of snow.

We have a five-foot fence in our yard.  We got so much snow you could literally step over it in some spots.  We have a chocolate lab who did precisely that.

I tried tying her out, but stupidly gave her too much room and she went over the fence on her leash!

Hubby went out to Home Depot and bought some deer fencing and some sturdy sticks, then he used zip ties to secure the deer fencing along the top of our fence.  Basically he made our 5 foot fence about 7 1/2 feet high.

It looks like this:

Our ghetto fence.

Our ghetto fence.

I know it looks ghetto, but we are set far back from the road, it is only the back yard that is fenced in and it keeps my dogs safe.

I said I’d throw it out to you, so here it is.  Have you have an issue with your dogs going over your fence?  If so, how did you handle it?   How would you work with your dog to stop them from going over the fence?

You Can't Make This Up….or The Trouble With Bobby – Part Two

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You may remember I was in Florida last weekend.

I arrived late Thursday night.

Friday I went and visited with the gal’s from the corporate office of the company I work for, then got in my rental car and headed over to the Clearwater area where I would spend Friday and Saturday night.

Friday evening after crashing attending the rehearsal dinner, I called Hubby then settled in to write Saturday’s blog post and watch the new episode of In Plain Sight.

About 10:30 (give or take) Hubby called and said, “There’s been some trouble at the other house.”

(One side of the duplex is vacant.  Our tenants left at the end of February and we’ve been working over there, trying to get it ready for new tenants.  Well ok, mostly it’s been Hubby that’s been working over there, but I paint!)

I said, “What happened?”

“Apparently Bobby got inside and barricaded himself in the attic.”

WHAT?

For real.  WHAT?

Me trying not to lose my cool, “How does that happen?”

Ok, for the sake of getting you the entire story, I’m not going to share our back and forth conversation.  I contacted my tenant to ensure she was ok and asked her what happened.

Between Hubby and my tenant the gist of it was, apparently Bobby was wanted on some charges and the cops showed up so he ran.  Next door.

He ran next door to my tenant’s house and knocked on the door.  My tenant’s son opened the door where upon Bobby pushed his way thru, ran down their basement steps, up the other basement steps, and up the stairs to the second floor, where he pulled down the attic stairs and locked himself in.

The police tasered him and escorted him out.

That was the story I had Saturday morning.

Sunday morning as I was traveling across the state to visit family and friends, I called my sister and we were discussing the events at the other house.

“He’ll go away for a long time” she said, “he assaulted a police officer.”

“He did?”  Why doesn’t Hubby tell me these things?

“Oh yes, a police dog is an officer.”

I about ran off the Beeline.

I’m pretty sure I was shaking my head in disbelief.  “He hurt a dog?”  “In my house?”

Yup, now you know why Hubby didn’t tell me.

That was the story I had Sunday morning.

Monday I flew home and immediately took my puppies for a walk, deciding to deal with this incident in the morning.

Tuesday I placed a call to the police department asking to speak with the arresting office.  As of today’s post, still no call.   I stopped by the police station yesterday to pick up a copy of the report, but I missed the Records Department by 18 minutes.

Last night I got a hold of a copy of the police blotter (thanks to my tenant) and think I can give you a fairly clear story.

Bobby and his girlfriend had broken up.  On March 31st he broke into her house and sexually assaulted her (according to the police report.)

Here is the information I have from the Judicial website.

On March 27th there was a 6th degree larceny offense, a reckless endangerment offense and a 3rd degree criminal mischief offense; all misdemeanors.

On April 3rd there was a false incident report charge and a misuse of emergency 911 charge.  The false incident report is a felony.

I have also read the press release and am surmising the story in this fashion.

Friday Bobby went over to his ex-girlfriend’s house and said he’d been attacked and beaten on April 3rd.  He was high on PCP and they fought and he threatened her so she called the police and he ran.

That brings you up to speed on what I’ve already told you.

From what I’ve read he went up into our unfinished attic and using a live electrical cord, tied the attic stairs up.  (It’s a pull down ladder/stairs.)

(Process that for a minute and think about what happens when you take a 2oo (give or take) pound man high on PCP and put him in an unfinished attic.)

The police cut the electrical wire and sent the dog up.  Bobby threw a box that might have had a computer in it (previous tenants left it) at the dog, knocking the dog down the stairs where he was caught by the police officer.  The police officer then sent the dog back up the stairs and the dog attached himself to Bobby’s arm, wherein both dog and Bobby tumbled out of the attic.

Bobby was then whacked a couple of times with a flashlight (supposedly) on the leg and eventually tasered and removed from the premises.  The dog was taken to the emergency vet hospital where he was treated for injuries to his right hip and nose.  He was given anti-inflammatory medication.

After removing Bobby from the house, the police went back inside and took pictures.  They then left the house, without benefit of locking the doors and never notified either Hubby or myself.

On April 6th, Bobby was arrested for 2 counts of 1st degree burglary, 2nd degree sexual assault, interfering with an officer, assaulting a public official, 2nd degree reckless endangerment, cruelty to animals, 2nd degree criminal trespass, 2 counts of 3rd degree criminal mischief, breach of peace and threatening.  Five of those charges are felonies.

Unfortunately in CT the cruelty to animals is a misdemeanor U, whatever the hell that means.  Basically on the website I found, there was no recommended sentence for a misdemeanor U.

Hey CT, I don’t like that, do you hear me?  This blogger doesn’t like the misdemeanor U!  And U will be hearing from Me!

According to my calculations if he gets convicted on all charges his minimum sentence will be just shy of six years.  If he gets the max, well he just may never see daylight again without the benefit of fencing.

On April 6th, we were left with cut electrical wires and holes in our ceilings.

I’m not whining, I know this could have been a whole lot worse.  If Hubby and I had still been living there, it’s a very real possibility that Bobby would have been shot.

My one regret is that I wasn't responsible for at least one of his black eyes. (Photo courtesy of Manchester Police Department)

You can’t make this shit up.

Author’s Note: I was so busy trying to process and deal with this issue, that I forgot to mention I did a guest post.  If you have a minute, go on over and check out The Writing World.

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