We got a new dog today.  Which is to say that the person I live with made me get a new dog by pitching a tantrum worthy of a 5-year old, and never failing to bring the issue up more than three times a day of the fact that one was needed to take the place of Daisy. 

I wanted no part in this decision and have made my position on the matter clear.  The truth of the matter is we occasionally treated Daisy pretty shittily because of her multitude of neuroses and the lack of patience we both had in trying to deal with them and the absolute thing either of us needs, with our nerves frayed as it is from dealing with one another, was another dog to repeat the cycle with.  That isn't fair to the dog, therefore we should not have one.  Period.

However, the person I live with became absolutely convinced in that overactive mind of hers that unless we had a new dog, we would be burgled, attacked by the poisonous snakes living in the garage or killed by intruders.  In short, she didn't feel "safe" without something around that could protect her.  Besides, she'd work with the dog and spend time with the dog and, you know, turn it into the best damn dog ever.

So, to that criteria, here is a shortlist of all the expectations this poor dog is expected to live up to:

•  Bark loudly and ferociously when unfamiliar people/vehicles show up, but not at the neighbors who drive right by our property line as they go to and from their church services (because there's a lot of them and that's just annoying).
• Protect us from all the bad, evil, poisonous snakes living on the property.  (I feel the need to insert here that said snakes are probably imagined.)
• To behave without flaw from the moment it arrives at our doorstop.
• Oh, and keep the groundhogs out of the garden (even though the garden is on the other side of the fenced-in yard).

My own list of requirements, since the only way to avoid getting a new dog was to pack my bags and get he hell out, (which is coming, just not now) was slightly shorter:

• Don't jump the fence and go roaming all over the neighborhood.
• Pretty please.
  

We go to the pound, and the lady there knows my the person I live with from way back.  We settle on a decent looking gal, a retriever-mix who is obviously desperate for some TLC.  This was after I had to put my foot down and say no two a pair of super-cute fluffy puppies.  Despite repeated and vehement assurances that she could raise them up into a pair of perfect angels,  I had to remind her that fluffy puppies

• Don't  come housebroken or litterbox trained, so welcome to a day spent cleaning up shit and piss.
• Are not ferocious nor will they bark loudly enough to alert you of intruders.
• Could be eaten by the imaginary pythons in the garage.
• And, at two month old more or less, have an intimidation factor of 0....
• ...but a cuteness factor that is through the roof, so that if they ever went outside, all they would serve to do is attract strangers who want to look at the precious little things.

Aside from the "no puppies" thing, I make absolutely sure I do not have the final say in selecting the dog despite the repeated choruses of "well I don't know anything about these things, YOU decide."  Nope, sorry, talk to the shelter lady.  I am not having you come back on me later with a round of "well, YOU'RE the one who picked it out."

So New Dog comes home with us and does surprisingly well in the car.  And instead of, you know, sitting down and spending time with her or walking with her around the yard, the person I live wtih orders her tethered to Daisy's old chain so she can get used to the place.  She then spends about 10 minutes with New Dog and goes inside to do fuck only knows what.

Which leaves me, as I had predicted it would, left with a dog I don't even want because of shitty turn we did the last one by both being self-centered pricks.  But somebody has to keep New Dog from being lonely from the second she gets here, and keep her from freaking out.  New Dog goes off the chain and we spend an hour playing a pseudo-game of fetch in the yard.  New Dog does not jump the fence, nor does she get frightened at the fireworks our fucktard neighbors start setting off a day early, which last till well after midnight.  (Hello, there are mostly elderly people in the neighborhood and I am sure they don't appreciate a noise akin to a machine gun rousing them from their sleep.  Different story for another time, though.)

I go back inside because I have shit to do.  Things no one bothered to think about beforehand like, what are we going to feed New Dog.  I head off to Wal-Mart, but only after being instructed to get "pretty" dog food because the plain-looking stuff apparently has no nutritional value and will cause the dog to starve to death.  (The same holds true for cat food.  You have been warned.)  Over-paid for pretty dog food with fun colors and different shapes, come home to find New Dog is still being ignored/chained up in the yard.  Come to find out that the person I live with "had to beat her butt" because in her loneliness/not knowing where in the fuck she is, New Dog jumped off the porch to go investigate and almost hung herself because the chain snagged.  Now me personally, I think the nearly being killed was lesson enough and she could have done without the smacking on top of it.  But, as I keep being reminded, I know absolutely nothing about, well, anything, so I am left to assume I am wrong on this too.

New Dog continues to be ignored by the person I live with.  Go into kitchen, make comment about bang-up job she's doing working with her so far.  Person I live with is so offended by my crruelty that she goes to the grocery store for the third time in a day.  I'm left alone with New Dog, who freaks out when cars start filing down the driveway for the church services next door.

Go outside and hang with New Dog will her worry subsides, realize New Dog has a bad problem with wanting to jump all over you when excited.  She's also smart enough to wrap you up in the leash so you can't move if you try to get away from her.

Person I live with comes in and informs me that we are returning New Dog to the pound on Tuesday cause "she's too much like Daiser."  Odd, since where she was making Daisy out to be the fucking saint of all canines since her death, telling anyone she calls "what a good dog" she was and the pound lady that "I want one who'll act just like her."  So I call her on the part about wanting another Daisy, so this should be the perfect dog, but she repeats that it isn't, and the pound said we could return her if things didn't work out.

"It's a dog, not a fucking shirt," I reply and yes, I drop the f-bomb to a 60-something year old lady.  "And of course things aren't going to work if you chain her up the back deck and just leave her out there.  Get out there and work with her like you said you were going to."

"Well, it's your dog too."

"No it isn't.  Made that perfectly clear on at least half dozen occasions before we went to the pound.  Your dog.  Your crazy little wish to get one so someone doesn't kill us.  Your responsibility, so go be responsible.  You're not going to test drive a new one every weekend till you find one you like."

Person I live with goes to watch the news.  I go back outside with New Dog, who is still wigged out by her surroundings.

We all go to bed.

New Dog wakes me up at 1 in the morning with nervous whining and pacing, as she is chained just outside my bedroom window.  Go outside with New Dog, calm her down.  New Dog is adamant that I can't go back inside, but it is 1 am, I am popping Lunesta like they're lifesavers in effort to get my sleep schedule fixed.  She almost shreds the screen on the storm door.

New Dog wakes me up at 3 in the morning with more frenzied pacing.  Go outside, thinking her chain is stuck in between planks for the deck.  Am tackled the moment I open the door.  Fall down 4 concrete steps from the enthusiasm of the blow, coupled with my feet being tangled in cord from where she's just run circles around me.  Stay outside with New Dog, calm her the fuck down.  Go back in.

Take and aspirin and another half a sleeping pill cause my nerves are shot by this point, and try to  go back to sleep.  Have laid down for less than 5 minutes before realizing my back…fucking….hurts!  Everything in my spine from my shoulder blades all the way down to my hips feels like it's been compacted and bent out of alignment.  Can't lay down.  Pain gets marginally less if I stand up.  Can't.  Fucking.  Sleep.  Reach up to push the hair out of my face, which ignites my shoulder, more specifically the muscle(s?) that connects it to my neck.  Been having this battle for a few weeks now, where it will suddenly tighten up and decide it's too short for me to be able to move.  More pain to go with the spinal pain.  Which means my sleeping pill(s) have now been negated by the caffeine-spiked aspirins I have to take to try to negate the pain in my back.

New Dog wakes me up at 5 in the morning with more frenzied pacing.  I go wake the person I live with and tell her to deal with her damn dog.

It is 5 in the morning and I am wide the fuck awake.  Brilliant.  It's not like I had the 10th anniversary party of 2 of my friends and a birthday party of their brother coming up later in the day, or that I was really looking forward to it since I haven't seen any of my really good friends in about 2 weeks.

None of this is New Dog's fault.  She is only doing what is in her nature.  If I'd been abandoned by my previous owner (she was, as she's already been fixed), and then shoved in a small cage where everybody came in and looked, but no one wanted me, I'd be pretty damn sad and scared and lonely too.  The problem is that she has the misfortune of being brought into a home with two petty, selfish people who are so busy cutting into one another that we don't have the capacity to treat this poor dog the way it needs to be treated if it isn't absolutely perfect.  Just like with the previous one.

I knew this going in.  I tried to stop it.  This dog does not deserve us or the life of stay-outside-on-your-chain-and-God forbid-you-do-something-She-Who-Lives-With-me-will-dislike loneliness that will be inflicted on her.   Yes, she will be well-fed and yes she will have nice, cold water, but that will be about all she has, as she who I live with sure isn't going to put forth all that effort to be bffs that she was so keen about.

Besides we already have a 16ish-year old SomethingOrAnother mix I've had since I was 13.  Though she has 4 teeth left in her mouth, she can cause any of the cats to flee in terror and can summon up quite the ferocious bark when something pisses her off or makes her nervous.  Oh, and by the way, she barks at strange cars when they pull in the driveway (or when one of us wakes her up and she doesn't recognize our engines right off) and she recognizes they neighbors and does not bark at their vehicles. 

In short, she's perfect.

Except that she was, you know, already here.