I am happy to babysit or cook or clean; I am here to serve and flexibility is my middle name, but please don't ask me to watch your indoor pet. I will gladly recommend a few great people for the job, but the combination of pet dander and drool is not for me, and I'm sure I fall into the category of “horrible person” for kicking my husband's best furry friend to the yard six years ago.
In order to redeem myself, let me explain that I was born into a family that never owned an indoor pet. We were taught early on that animals belong in the barn or the woods or the zoo. We lived on a large farm in South Dakota until I was five, so there were animals everywhere; I remember playing with cats and dogs and riding our Shetland pony, and there were pigs and cows in the fields. I wasn't particularly an animal lover, but they were a part of our lives, and most of them were serving a purpose: chasing mice, scaring strangers, bacon.
When we left the farm and moved to Ohio, I started school and heard rumors of friends who had pets in their houses. “My dog sleeps in the bed with me.” “My cat wears doll clothes.” Soon my brother Chad and I began asking for a pet. Although we were hoping for a dog, we were living in my grandparents' basement at the time and settled for a few goldfish in a tiny bowl. When the goldfish died and we moved into a small house in town my parents eventual let us get some hamsters. We were more than disappointed to learn that hamsters are boring, stinky, and don't do tricks.
In 5th grade my parents bought a house on 12 acres with a creek and a red barn and my dad decided we could finally buy a dog—an outdoor dog, and the stipulation was that we would breed her and sell the purebred puppies. We did some research and finally found a beautiful purebred Golden Retriever puppy named Megan. She became my constant outdoor companion and we spent countless hours roaming the woods and creeks around our house together. I don't remember being disgusted by her breath or worrying about her having worms, I just remember being outside and running fast in the overgrown weeds. We would shoot down our creek when it flooded in a tiny raft and we were always up for an adventure. She gave us many litters of beautiful purebred puppies before she died; she was the closest thing I ever had to an actual pet.
Although I loved Megan—my hiking, dirty, burr-stuck-in-the-fur outdoor dog—I noticed that I still wasn't fond of indoor animals when I visited other homes. The dog hair that somehow wound up in my brownie, the cat fur that got all over my pants when I sat on the couch. It grossed me out. I had a hard time petting strange cats or dogs, and I had a particularly hard time when a hyper dog jumped in my lap or barked my ears off. I think my entire family feels the same way; once when we were visiting my Great-Aunt Dot her wiener dog peed on my sister's lap shortly after we arrived for our visit. On the two hour drive home after that experience, I think we felt more justified than ever about our disgust with house pets.
Hopefully some of this background information will explain why things got a little hairy in our two-bedroom apartment with my husband, his dog, and me during the first 9 months of our marriage. Shortly before I became engaged to my husband Steve, he excitedly bought a cute purebred Golden Retriever puppy that was only a few months old. My husband is an animal lover and had been wanting a dog very badly for a long time. He named her “Max”–which is subsequently why I am allowed to name all our children. She was cute, and I was genuinely happy for him and this little puppy that would soon be ours.
In the beginning, I turned a blind eye when my soon-to-be husband kissed Max's nose and let her lick his face. He was cleaning up after the messes and taking care of her and it was all very paternal and sweet. The wedding day moved closer and Steve eventually moved into an apartment with an almost full-grown 50 lb. Max. I was nervous from the start about our set-up, but we didn't have any alternatives at the time. Before I knew it I went from a single girl in a clean and quiet environment to a married girl in a semi-bachelor two bedroom apartment with a guy and his Golden Retriever.
Because Steve knew I had never owned an indoor pet, we tried to establish some guidelines for our co-existence from the start. Max was not allowed in our room, or the kitchen. I thought I would be able to contain the dog hair if I could keep her out of my room and away from the food and dishes. Steve, who had been letting Max sleep in his bed at night up until we were married, was being a good sport; married life was blissful and wonderful and everything I had imagined it would be. My husband was almost perfect and our apartment was cute and full of mish-mashed hand-me-down furniture and lots of candles and Glade-Plug ins--just in case there was any hint of dog smell. And also to cover the smell of curry from our neighbors downstairs.
A few months passed and I noticed the walls began closing in on me. It was late Fall, and we were trapped inside the two-bedroom apartment staring at each other and listening to the dog panting behind the couch. We didn't have cable and 2/3 of us enjoyed romping around on the living room floor every evening after supper while 1/3 of us cleaned up the dishes. Large puppies and new husbands seemed to have extra energy to burn in the winter; in the meantime my energy was being spent vacuuming at least once daily and going through bulk quantities of lint roller tape on the couch. The winter grew cold and bleak, and I grew more and more annoyed and resentful toward the other female living in our apartment.
I am typically a laid back person, but by the end of 8 months in that apartment I was ready to pull my own hair out and let it blend in with the other blond fur that had permanently ground into the fibers of our carpet. Thankfully we closed on our house before our 9 month lease was up and moved into our current home on 2.5 acres before I went bald. I was back in the country and everything seemed familiar and peaceful and right. I assumed immediately that Max would permanently move to the back yard, but there was no fence and too many new acres to explore. Max took up her places behind the couch and in the guest room, and I tried to keep her out of the newly renovated kitchen.
I feel I should clarify that I've never thought she is a bad dog. She is a good dog, and as a Retriever is constantly seeking my approval. In the beginning we were equally jealous of each other; we both wanted Steve's attention, but I was determined to only have one girl in my house, and it was going to be the girl who cleaned up after messes and not the girl making the messes.
After one month in our house the fence was complete, and Max was finally free to chase squirrels and bark at the neighbors and lick herself in strange places. She began looking fit and happy and I was elated by our new set-up. Suddenly I was able to watch Max running in the yard without worrying how much hair was falling off along the way or if she had eaten a dead bird earlier in the day. At first Steve would bring Max back inside in the evenings and at night, but once she became accustomed to being outside with the birds, squirrels, ticks, mud, etc., he agreed that she was officially an outside dog. To this day she sleeps in the garage at night (on a heated pillow in the winter) and has had a comfortable 7+ years of life so far. I retired my couch lint roller and special hair-sucking vacuum, and other than the replenishing of disposable fish in my son's fish tank, I am confident we will not be visiting Pet-Smart for an indoor friend anytime soon.
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