Hating Dogs for Three Days

Seven years ago today, I wrote a post called Hating Cats for Three Days.    At that time, Mama kitty had baby kittens in the hay barn.  The kids and I enjoyed visiting them.

The kittens had gone missing.  This was back in the day when I would have never even entertained the idea of having indoor kittens.

Handsome Dude was 6 years old at the time.  Earlier that year, we had gotten a kitten and HD loved him and named him Peter.

Peter died and we didn’t know why.  Which was strangely out of character for us.  To not know.

Later on, we had gotten Mama Kitty.  Yes, the same Mama Kitty we have at our house to this very day.  Mama had kittens in the hay barn and it was very exciting for us all.  But two of the kittens had gone missing.

One night at dinner, David announced that he was moving some hay around and found two dead kittens.  At this news, 6 year old HD ran downstairs and refused to talk to anyone but me.

Here was our conversation:

Be advised: HD was six, was missing teeth, and was super hard to understand back then.

HD:  Mom.  *sob* I fink *sob* we need to sell all the cats on our property.  I don’t want them anymore.

Me:  Buddy, you love the cats.  You don’t want to sell them.

HD:  Yes, I do.  *sob*  First Peter dies, and now the two baby kitties.  That’s FREE (three) dead cats.

Me:  I know.

HD:  Since there are free (three) dead cats, I am going to hate all cats for free (three) days.

Me:  You are not making any sense.

HD:  I will hate cats for three days.

Me:  Ok.

Well.

I want to run on my bed and throw a fit now and have someone comfort me.  Because my heart is sad and I know feel as if I am going through exactly what HD was going through exactly 7 years ago today.

I want to hate all dogs for three days.  And make it all go away. I want to not be emotionally tied up in this and make a sane, logical decision.  But, I cannot.

Probably within an hour of my post last night, in which I shamelessly boasted about the gal dogs going six days without a fight . . . they got in a fight.

Things had been going well.  I had shock collars on both of them and would warn them if they were growling or acting moody.  The boys wanted Abbie to hang with them in the loft, and I had Charlie with me in my room with the door closed.  I had asked Hadley to get the boys because we needed to have a talk about the plans for tomorrow.

LD forgot to close the door and Abbie came into my room.  The gal dogs seem to now fight over dominance and space issues.  I am not sure, but they got in a fight and it was a doozy.  David was not yet home, so this kids and I tried to get them apart for what seemed like an eternity.   Hadley  and I ended up having to drive Charlie to the emergency vet clinic.  We were there for a couple of hours and then it was decided that we would leave her overnight and I would pick her up in the morning.  I was able to rework my schedule so I could drive her home today and then teach from home.

Poor, poor, poor Charlie.  She was wounded and sad.  When I walked in this morning, she was tucked away in the back, but apparently she could hear me talking and she started this new whine/howl.  It made my feelers sad.

I loaded her and we made the trek home.  I got home and set her up on the couch.

And I taught my kids and she hung out and recovered.

I was dreading writing this post.  I knew what the next chapter of my story would be, and I did not want to write it.  But, I cannot change it.  It is what it is.

David wants to get rid of Abbie.  He has reasons, and they make sense. He is probably right.  I just cannot.  To me, she was born to be our dog, to live here with us.

I love her.

And isn’t weird how attached we get to these animals?  And then I get frustrated with myself because there are so many worse things in life that  could be happening to me.

It just hurts so much.

I went on a walk on my lunch break to check on the cows.  For the time since Tank died, I had a good cry.  A real, good, hard cry.

I have no idea what to do.  I really do not.  It is not easy, but messy and horrible.  All six of us love both dogs and this will be a very hard decision for us all.

Me:  David!  Go to the library and check out every book on dog training you can find.

David:  Got it.

Later.

David:  Due to covid, I cannot go in the library.

Me:  Dang!

Later.

Me:  David!  Can you buy a muzzle?

David:  Yes.

Abbie got out of her muzzle within two minutes, I kid you not.

Me:  David!  We need to buy a basket muzzle.  Off the Amazon.

David:  Ok.

I have a lot of hope in this basket muzzle.

This is all just so perplexing to me.  They have lived together for almost a year.  What is going on?  What has changed?

We just want to do what is best.