Why My Dog is Better Than Yours

About four years ago, I started begging Troy for a puppy.  He was unmoved and continued to say no...no matter how many promises the girl and I made to him...we were at a complete standoff.  In comes a dog named Miley.  Miley was this beautiful golden retriever that belonged to a childhood friend.  She had this beautiful coat, was a friendly and loving dog and she was pregnant.  Her owner had bred her with another golden retriever and she was due in the early spring (March - 2011).  I decided to pull out the big guns.  I convinced Troy that life would be miserable if I didn't get to have one of these puppies.  After much more begging and pleading...he finally agreed.  I waited impatiently in Vermont while Miley remained pregnant in Maine.  I recieved updates weekly (ok...daily) and when Miley finally went into labor, her owner was away and so her sister (another close friend of mine) helped birth the babies. The second the number 5 dog was born and I got the pictures (as they were in progress), I knew I wanted her.  She was so much darker than the other puppies....this dark golden that reminded me of the sunsets I viewed while in Africa.  As weeks progressed, I made the trek back to Maine as often as I could.  The kids of the Maine family had started calling my baby girl, Hot Dog because of her coloring and my daughter soon had to step in and remind them...it was our dog and its name was Loopy.  Why Loopy?  Well, when we decided to get this dog, it was on the understanding that Troy was going to have a hand in the naming of the puppy.  His name of choice was Lupidus.  Lupidus?  Yeah.  Lupidus.  Named after the pilot on the show, Lost.  Of course, knowing that we were going to be getting a GIRL dog, the girl and I decided to abbreviate the name and call her Loopy.  And if we only had known the fact that the name would fit her to a tee.

A week before getting Loopy from Maine for good, I fell down my stairs and broke my shoulder....shattered it actually.  I had to have emergency surgery and had a metal plate and 8 screws put in it to keep it together.  I returned home in a lot of pain, not being able to work or even move.  I spent my hours in a recliner drugged up on narcotics (or opiates...whatever) and cried a lot.  The next week was the date I was supposed to get Loopy and bring her home and it was also my birthday weekend.  My cousin offered to drive me to Maine and I spent the weekend with some of my besties and Loopy.  Bringing Loopy home was the easy part.  Keeping her from causing me excrutiating pain was a bit harder.  She was definitely my dog from the beginning....jumping up into my lap and staying their for hours (sometimes without moving to go pee...pleasant when you can't move much) and when I eventually could sleep on the couch (I couldn't sleep in the bed because I couldn't be on my back so I slept on my good side and Troy packed me in with pillows.  We weren't crate training Loopy yet and so she spent most nights sleeping on my broken shoulder while I drifted out of painful sleep.  There were many nights in which Troy and to come out because I was crying so hard but couldn't move the dog because there was no way for me to get to her.  Eventually things started to move a bit better and Loopy still was at my side constantly.  She would walk up and down my road without a leash and was THE cutest thing ever.  We made frequent trips back to Maine so she could see her mom and sisters/brothers and I realized quickly that she was going to be a naughty dog.  While the other puppies played and chased each other, Loopy played harder and tackled the other dogs.  She never came when she was called and she was constantly chewing on rocks and other such things.

At home, her behavior wasn't much better.   She was obsessed with underwear and socks.  She chewed holes in the wall if I was out of her sight (even if it was just in the bathroom with the door closed.)  She chewed on our molding, our chairs, our blankets.....she chewed on EVERYTHING except the dog toys she was supposed to chew on.  She devoured plastic bottles, she destroyed any somewhat weak dog toy.....and she constantly chewed on our cat.  We kept being told that things would get better...that she would grow out of it.  She turns 3 this month and she STILL chews up socks and facecloths.  She still will rip a blanket to shred if you turn your back.  Troy gets frustrated at her and threatens to find her a new home (which he never would) but honestly....I couldn't love her any more.  She still sits completely on my lap (even at 75 pounds) and she won't let me go to bed (even for a nap) unless she is right beside me, touching me in some way.  Our nightly routine is she paces outside the bathroom until I'm ready to go to bed....she then follows me into bed....waits for me to lie down and get my CPAP mask on and then collapses against me....not allowing me to move.  She lies there until later on in the night, Troy comes in and gets her to kennel her for the night.  He says its almost always a fight and most nights I wake up to her trying to burrow into my side to keep from being taken out of the room.

I have loved dogs before.  I had two, Muffin and CadyDog that were my loves.....but Loopy has this part of my heart that I can't imagine ever letting go of.  She is MY dog.  She makes me happy on my shittiest of days and when I cry she licks my tears off my face until I laugh.  She is a great cuddler and loves my daughter enough to let her brush the knots out of her hair and play with her on the ground.  I don't know what I would do without this dog.  I hope she lives until she's 40.  :)

Loopy turns three in a few weeks.  It seems like yesterday she was in her crate in my car on the way home from Maine.  She was such a cute puppy and has grown into such a beautiful and wonderful dog.  It doesn't matter how naughty she is.....I don't think I could ever think a bad thing about her....she's my mess....she's my pain in the ass.  She's all mine.  Love you Loopy.