Why I Don't Have Children Yet

Whomever it was that said that pets were good practice for children may have had a valid point.

We used to wonder why we didn't have children. We assumed, stupidly, that it really was because of my bizarre medical issues. Then we assumed it was because God knew our marriage was going to need some work (He was right, of course!). Now that we're back on solid ground, and back to pondering the child question, we have discovered the truth: if we can't properly raise a puppy, we don't deserve a child.

We just got home from Colorado. We raced in and dropped of the bags and bags of crap we bought (Merry Christmas to ourselves...and again, we always wonder why we can't get the credit card debt paid off and left paid off!..maybe there's a lesson there too) and raced out to pick up our "heathens" from our friend that's way too good to us and always watches them.

For those of you that don't really know me, we have a zoo. There's Thomas, the fat cat (he's like 21 pounds--for real), Elsa, the kitten (who is actually not a kitten after being here for 2 years), Thor, the old dog (Rottweiler/doberman mix), Andy, the middle child (golden retriever/cocker spaniel mix), and Malachi, the baby (German Shepard and possibly greyhound cross). And there's a family of mice that sometimes take up residence, but Thomas is pretty good at evicting them. All of this in a house that is under 1100 square feet.

So Malachi is just about 3 years old. Malachi and Thor have a long running record of jumping the fence in our backyard, and we have finally gotten a large privacy fence to contain them. Malachi and Thor attended puppy obedience school, and Malachi passed with flying colors (Thor was a doggie school dropout--The Fire came during the last 2 weeks of class, so Thor never graduated).

So, we left to go see our kiddo that's shipping off to Iraq in under a month, and our friend L, who truly is a saint, agreed to keep the dogs and we had a teenager come to watch the cats. Saint L often watches our "boys" and we watch her dog (a very well behaved Brittany Spaniel) when she's out of town. This has been our arrangement for over 4 years, and in fact, L has been upset when we've hired a doggie sitter in the past. I think she's changed her mind.

Apparently at 1300 this date, Malachi bit L's neighbor. On the arse. Hard.

Said neighbor is a former co-worker of Hubby, and a current co-worker of L. Said neighbor has a dog, and a hundred years ago (well, at least over a year, and we think around two years ago), Thor and Malachi jumped the fence and went to play with the neighbor's dog. That's the only time we know about the dogs interacting. Since that time, L has only permitted the dogs into the side yard, that has a large fence and nobody has jumped that fence.

When neighbor got bit today, he announced that the dogs always are jumping the fence and attacking his dog. L didn't even know it had happened. Neighbor came over to talk with L about trimming some bushes, and L opened the door and when Neighbor was done talking with L, he turned and Malachi ran out, did the criminal deed, and L chased him to keep him from running into the street. She had no idea it happened. Neighbor took a picture of the injured area, and showed it to L. L burst into tears, and told us what happened when we arrived to get the dogs, about 5 hours later.

Seeing as how I work with the Poh-lice, and I know that it's against the law not to report an animal bite, I called the PD. I had to explain the story twice to my dispatch co-workers. Hubby went to Neighbor to apologize and to tell him that the police were coming and would need to talk with him (at which point the Neighbor told Hubby that because sometime Neighbor had said hello to Hubby and Hubby didn't acknowledge Neighbor, Neighbor didn't think Hubby was sincere in his apology). Then I had to listen as it was explained to the 3, yes, that's not a typo, 3 officers that came to take the report.

So now Malachi is under quarantine at our house. This means he's locked in the extra bedroom while the other animals are loose in the house. Malachi is not allowed near other animals or people for 10 days. The animal control officer will contact us tomorrow, and I'll get further instructions. We'll most likely be issued a citation and have a mandatory court appearance. Malachi will have a black splotch on his record, and so will Hubby and I.

There's no explanation for Malachi's behavior--he's never been aggressive, and nobody thinks he was provoked. However, about two months ago, before the big fence, there was a teeny-bopper and her friends walking by the little fence, and Malachi jumped the fence and jumped up on the teeny-bopper, scratching her. Mom of teeny-bopper and Hubby met, and agreed there was no bite, but just a scratch...until Mom got home and called the police, where yours truly answered the phone. The officer that responded that time agreed it was just a scratch and there was no proof of a bite--but that was the same officer that responded tonight. So now I look like a jerk in front of my co-workers.

And Malachi's pitiful wails of woe and his whimpers are enough to have me sitting with tears rolling down my face and to have Hubby drinking...something we very rarely do in this house. And the other two dogs just watch us like they are condemning us for being terrible pet parents. Even the cats are hiding from me.

It's painfully obvious to me why we don't have children yet.