Friday night, I, finally, got to watch Marley and Me. You know that lovable story about a rotten dog and the family who loved him. Frankly, I didn’t see much wrong with Marley. Seemed like a typical Lab to me. We had a part Lab and that dog ate an entire outdoor swing and doghouse. It is what Labs do, CHEW! However, I do understand the aggravation of having a pain in the ass dog and loving him just the same.
Boudin came to us through a weak moment at the mall pet store. There he was in his little cage with one of his siblings just looking as cute as a Beagle puppy could. I just had to show him to SoHubby, then my to-be, with no intentions of getting a dog. I mean who is crazy enough to get a puppy 2 weeks before they are scheduled to get marry and go off on a week long honeymoon. Us, apparently. This was my first lesson in SoHubby’s impulse buy of the expensive nature. We sat in the little store going back and forth. I wanted to just wait and get a pound puppy. All my dogs before had been from the pound. SoHubby was in a bind and needed a wedding gift for me, pronto and this looked like his way out. I guess Boudin’s cuteness got to me and the constant nagging of SoHubby and we walked up to the cashier and paid for our first dog together. I will never forget ,there was a woman and her daughter in line in front of us and she went on how the dumbest dog she ever had was a Beagle. I guffawed at such a notion, because surely if you have a little patience and train your dog everything will be bliss. AW, the young and foolish.
Those nights with an 8 week old pup would prepare me for the up all nights one has with a newborn. There was much crying and yelping. And not all would be from the dog. For some reason, SoHubby thought this would be my job to take care of this dog. Nice wedding gift, huh, one that poops on the carpet and keeps you up all night. Frankly, I was use to getting my 10 hours and was none to happy getting up with a dog. I had never had this experience with a dog, but that might have been because I never had a puppy this young before. Although, unhappy with this situation, I pushed on and spent my days with Boudin. Mostly trying to get him not to chew on electrical wires and chairs. Walking him and begging him not to eat his own poop while trying not to throw up in front of the neighbors. Slowly we grew to an understanding that I was the head Bitch around here and he was to do what he was told. However, there was one thing that I could never control and it annoys me to this day. His barking.
Beagles are hunting dogs. They basically sniff out small prey for their masters and their loud, obnoxious barks are to point out what they have found. Boudin would never have a chance to hunt like he was intended, but the instinct is there. He hunted the cat barking the whole time. Cleo was pretty much disgusted by this whole ordeal and found refuge on top of a bookshelf. Then Boudin had to find another way to get his barking out of his system. That would mean barking at any and everything. Sure dogs bark when a person knocks, especially a person they don’t know, but eventually they stop. Not Boudin. He can hear you coming from a mile away and he just knows you are coming to our house and that is when the barking starts and it doesn’t stop until I either threaten bodily harm or the person is a mile away. The barking is not reserved just for people that Boudin doesn’t know, oh he will go apeshit when it is someone he knows. He not only barks, but runs himself into the floorboards. That is when he is excited. The worst is when he barks, I get up to see who is here and there is nothing and no one outside. My only explanation for why he jumped from his bed and ran barking to the window is that he heard a fly fart and thought I should know about it, IMMEDIATELY. So I totally understand the scene in Marley and Me when the mom is so tired, finally has gotten her 2 babies down for a nap ready to take a nap herself and then hears the rumblings of the garbage truck. She jumps into action and begs the dog to just be quiet. The dog goes crazy, because, hey, there is a garbage truck out there and that only happens every week. Next we see the dad come home and the mom sits there out of her mind screaming for him to take the dog away. She doesn’t care where, just away. Oh that scene has been played out in this house many times and many times I have thought about what to do with the body when SoHubby refuses to remove the noise machine. Lucky for Boudin, I was too tired to put my plans of permanent eviction in motion. I have just come to realized that there is nothing, short of removing his voice box (and I have heard it done for Beagles, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that), to be done about the barking. It is in his make-up just like it is in my make-up to scream, “SHUT THE HELL UP!” We all have our faults.
As much as I claim to hate Boudinand threaten him on a regular basis, there is some love between us. I am the one to take him to his vet appointments. I make sure he has a place to stay when we go on vacation. And I am the one to scream, “SHUT THE DAMN DOOR”, so he won’t escape, another charming attribute of the Beagle, which would then lead me to go searching for him all over the neighborhood. The kids feed him every morning and SoHubby does most of the potty duty. Boudin is part of this family and like most family members there are things about him that we could do without, but like most loving families we choose to overlook them and make sure he is taken care of, even if he was the reason there is one hotel in Destin, FL that we can never darken their door, again. Heck, we might be forbidden to enter the city limits of Destin ever again. I guess it is a small price to pay for love.
For your listening pleasure:
Sam took on the part of reenacting my response.
Oh my! That’s hee-larious!!