knuckles and knugget

So, we got a PUPPY!

What led to a puppy? A lot, I tell you.

When my husband and I first met, we both had our own dogs. Mine was a two year old rescue dog that I adopted four months before meeting my husband; his dog was Knuckles, an 11 year old lab mix he'd had since she was six weeks old. Not long after I adopted my dog, she began exhibiting some troubling behavior. Troubling, as in, she was an extreme alpha female who wanted to kill other animals. Cats, other dogs. She attacked other people's pets when small children were present. It was bad. And it kept escalating. After her third attempt to take out my husband's dog - and by take out I mean latching onto the jugular and requiring activities I won't mention here to get her to release - I decided to have her evaluated by an animal behavioral specialist. The prognosis wasn't good. The specialist said in no uncertain terms that my dog's dominant behavior was considered extreme, she needed constant conditioning to try and subdue her, and that she should never live in a home where she might encounter other animals or small children.

Well, that wasn't going to work. Just look at the types of people in my life:

Adorable, right??? My life was full of little ones and it was going to be full of little ones for many years to come. It was time to give my dog the chance to be homed with a person that would let her be top dog. It was a very hard thing to do.

So, flash forward a year and we were married, we still had Knuckles, and we both wanted a puppy. But for some reason that I can't remember right now, we put it off for a few months. Probably something like busy schedules, or wanting to wait for things to calm down a bit. But things never calm down. I lost my job; I got a job but my husband left his job; home renovations; vacations; a death in the family; a few health scares; throw in a couple more job transitions... you get the picture, right? The economy and life in general made it pretty easy to put off adding a a puppy to our family. Why we trick ourselves into believing that there is a "good time" to completely disrupt life and throw a baby anything into it, I don't know. You just have to take the plunge.

So, flash forward another year, and here we are in Dahlonega. Still no puppy, but talk of a puppy had definitely ramped up. There was only one thing still coming between us and a puppy, and that was a one-week period when I would be on vacation with my family and my husband would be on a business trip. As soon as we were back, we would begin our search for the perfect wiggly, waggly, lickety-stickety puppy.

And that week came and went and we came home to something we didn't quite expect: our dog, Knuckles, acting like she'd just had the wind taken out of her sails. It worried us. What would a puppy do to our sweet old dog? We did the easiest things we could think of doing, and that was 1) take Knuckles to the vet and 2) decide once again to put off getting a puppy. It was sad. We were both ready for some fresh life to be breathed into our family dynamic.

And then, two weeks later, Kuckles was on some new medication and doing much better, and we were on a trip to the grocery store, and what did we find but a litter of adorable 8-week old puppies - right out front and ready for adoption. And this little face was sitting in a crate with four of her litter mates:

My husband and I danced around the Knuckles issue for about two minutes, and then he said something that really resonated with me. He said that waiting to get a puppy felt like we were just waiting for Knuckles to die. Yuck. That is exactly what it felt like. Sweet Knuckles. She's old, but she's not so old that we needed to be on a death watch; and deep down inside, we both wanted our good old girl to have an influence on a puppy. We wanted Knuckles to take part in training a puppy, with grand hopes that some of her Knuckleheadedness will rub off. So, after all of the delay, we decided to stop putting off what we said we had wanted to do for YEARS, and we brought home Knugget.

And of course, it's like our house has woken up. What a difference 20 pounds of puppy breath and puppy noises, puppy tails, puppy clumsiness and puppy eyes can make. No to mention puppy kisses, puppy discoveries, puppy toys. Even Knuckles has a renewed interest in Kong balls and tennis balls, and although Knuckles won't be enticed into wrestling matches, she does let Knugget kiss her face and sleep curled up in her belly.

And I know that Knuckles gets annoyed with Knugget's constant enthusiasm for all things, but, I'm pretty sure that's a smile I see on Knuckles's face.

Clean Bugs, Dirty Bugs

One of my good friends says that when it comes to killing bugs, there are clean bugs and dirty bugs. You don't kill clean bugs (i.e. june bugs, ladybugs, lightning bugs, or the lovely praying mantis), but you can feel free to smash, smack or open a can on any of the dirty bugs (i.e. roaches, flies, ants, mosquitoes and the like).

As for the list of what constitutes clean versus dirty bugs, for the most part, I agree with her. But there are two places we diverge: spiders and those speckled jumping monstrosities a.k.a. camel crickets. You know, those ugly things with the fat, freckled, round little bodies and the long, bent hind legs that can propel them straight at your face when you walk into the laudry room and flip on the light. Ugh. I hate those things.

When I come across one of those jumpy little beasts, I find the heaviest shoe in my house and fling it as hard as I can towards it. I don't try to step on  it. For one, they are too thick to step on (ick) and will make a nauseating pop-noise (ick again), and two, you can't get close enough to step on them anyway. They just jump all crazy 'round the room until they find a piece of furniture or an appliance to hide under. If you want to eliminate it, you have to stand back, and you have to fling something very heavy, very fast.

That is, unless you are my friend with the well-defined code of ethics regarding clean and dirty bugs. We'll call her Brave. According to her, those freckly, fat, round little beasts are clean bugs and should not be subjected to death by combat boot. In fact, just like she is dealing with a lightning bug, Miss Brave will walk right up to a camel cricket, reach down, pick it up, carry it through the house, and set it free outside. Even if it squirms in her hand.

Now, as I mentioned, when I walk up to a camel cricket, it flails and jumps and generally gives me the heebiejeebies. Yes, I'm sure it senses the death wish I have for it and wants to escape me at all costs. But not my friend, Miss Brave. She can walk right up to one of those suckers. She is like one of those horse whisperers, but with camel crickets.

Which leaves us with spiders.

I just can't live with spiders in my house. I know they help us out by catching and eating the dirty bugs. But I can't do it. I have a hard enough time living with the ones that are outside. Like this one. 

This is an orb-weaver, called so because of the giant round webs they weave. This one is so big it would not fit on a silver dollar with its legs splayed. It's black and yellow and white and HUGE and weaves a zipper into its web. It's not venomous, but it is HUGE. And it has made its web right outside of our living room window, hanging down from the eave. Here's the view from inside.

There, I've put my car next to it so you can see how HUGE it is. I know the picture is a little cloudy, but that is part of its web. Look closely, it's there, and those are its legs coming out from behind the cloud.

There have been many HUGE orb-weaving spiders on the eaves and the decks of our new house. And so far, I have allowed all but one to live in peace. THAT ONE had to pay the price for the sake of all of the others. I needed to make an example of it so that all of the other giant spiders around our house would understand where they stand with me. THAT ONE wove its web hanging down from the eave right beside door from our bedroom to the deck. And every day, it would inch its web a little closer to being directly in front of the bedroom door. I use that door a lot because it is faster to walk across our deck to get to the kitchen from our bedroom than it is to walk through the house. Sometimes very late at night or very early in the morning, I will sleepily cross the deck to get a glass of water from the kitchen.

And I know me. When I walk around my house, I walk looking down. I have walked into more open doors, low-hanging light fixtures and open cabinets than I care to remember. So, take a moment... picture it with me, people. I'll even illustrate with a true story. Once, while on a neighborhood walk about ten years ago, I walked smack into the middle of a giant orb-weaver's web, and a big, fat, juicy, waaaay too-big-to-step-on spider ended up on my stomach. And then I experienced a very brief but intense living nightmare in which I danced the fastest, craziest little jig you ever saw. 

Oh, my, and it would have been even more awful with a spider is as big as THAT ONE, especially since it had the potential to end up on my face. So, my apologies to Miss Brave and to THAT ONE. I am doing my best to respect the giant spiders around my house... I just had to pull a little Godfather routine to make sure they respect me, too.