Why we don't have a dog

(Warning, there will be talk of dog poo in this post, so if you are pregnant or easily nauseated, feel free to come back tomorrow.)

Before we had kids, we had a dog. She was a weird dog, to say the least. Her name was Roxie, as in Foxy Roxie, because she looked just like a fox. She was also equal parts sly as a fox and crazy as a fox--not the best qualities in a canine companion when you are planning to have kids, thus her exit from our family just prior to The Quiet Contemplator's arrival. (Sidenote: NEVER give your dog away when you are eight months pregnant. It is not pretty. The overall sadness of losing my best friend to another family, combined with the crazy pregnancy hormones made me cry every hour for WEEKS. Watching her get into the car and pull away from our house with her new "mommy" was one of the hardest things I have ever done. And one of the least selfish. She is so happy now.)

Hi. My name is Roxie.

When Roxie was a puppy, she was the master of disaster. Left to her own devices, she could tear up a house from top to bottom in five seconds flat. Needless to say, we crate trained her until we could get a handle on her…um…willfulness.

Roxie's crate was the size of Texas. She had plenty of room to roam while we were away, but not enough room to destroy our house. Since it was big and had wood floors, we kept her crate in our bedroom. Roxie was not a big fan of being held captive by "The Man". Even in her crate, her slyness let her find ways to give into mirth. One fateful night, Roxie decided to let out her frustrations on our Ralph Lauren comforter…

First things first, how did Roxie get a king-sized down comforter into her crate? Simple. She took her bulky butt and used it to shimmy the crate, inch-by-inch, until she had moved the crate five feet across our bedroom floor and to the edge of our bed. She then proceeded to, little by little, to pull the comforter off of our bed and into her crate.

After that, the party was on. Roxie decided it would be an awesome idea to pee and poo on said comforter. She then decided her next step should, obviously, be to shred the comforter into tiny bits.

The end result? We arrived home to find a dog that had tarred and feathered herself (and covered our entire bedroom in feathers). The tar? Her own pee and poo. The feathers? Eighty bajillionty tiny bits of duck butt.

My bad.

This, my friends, is why we don't have a dog. Because if I came home to that hot mess right now, I might have a rage stroke. But I am weak and love dogs, so doing this all over again is inevitable...