Spencer and the Snow Storm

We got over a foot and a half of snow last night. Spencer is about a foot and a half tall. So, when I let him out this morning he went sledding down the back stairs and belly flopped into the snow where he was immediately covered by the avalanche from the roof because I slammed the door. Oh it was funny!!! I laughed and laughed at him!! He crawled out and walked in a circle 3 times and then stood still. I assume he was peeing but all I could see of him was his head and the top of his back. He may have just been contemplating the best revenge for me laughing at him.

I was all ready to start snow blowing. I was still in my PJ's but I had on my scarf, hat, gloves and boots. I knew this was not going to be a fun project. My car was buried and my driveway is on an incline. And it is single wide meaning that only one car can fit down or up the driveway. I do have a turn around area. I knew I would have to snowblow the turn around also because there was no way I could back up and out of the driveway. Ok, so, now I was procrastinating, wondering how a plow guy could do it...where I should start...wondering if my neighbors will totally laugh at me snow blowing in my PJ's and wondering if I care if they do....Meanwhile, Spencer is doing his damndest to get back up the stairs.

To his credit, he was trying to dig around where he thought the stair was. He knew that I was going to be of NO help as I stood there giggling at him. He was mumbling under his breath as he dug. But really, it's not like he was going to put his superior digging skills to use for MY sake. He was not going to help me dig out the car. He finally realized that he does not have the ability to stand on one stair and dig on the next, so he starts barking at me.

I did all the dumb things I did when he got himself stuck upstairs. I tried encouraging him, I tried dragging him, I thought about trying to carry him. I was trying to avoid shoveling. I had to have a goal if I was going to get thru this snow hell and my goal was to not use a shovel, only the snow blower. Spencer was not going to ruin my goal before I even got started. Who's the evolved one here? I went up the stairs kicking snow out of the way, now both of us are muttering under our breath.

Spencer is back inside now and Emma, the smartest one in the family, had refused to come out at all. She rather pee on the rug than slide down the stairs. Who can blame her, really? Ok, now I am ready to snow blow. First task was to find the snow blower which was buried completely under all the snow. I started kicking and digging around where I think I had left it. Score! And it starts!! So far so good! But this is really wet, heavy snow and I kept getting stuck. As I have no upper body strength, I have to put my hips into it, with a rocking motion. I am sure this looks like some fetish video. Being in my PJ's with an assortment of winter accessories on I think makes the entire thing hysterical. Now, I am snow blowing, getting stuck, doing my snow blower dance and laughing hysterically by myself.Oh and talking to the snow blower. It started stalling out so I would then say "Come ON! You're a snow blower, this is what you DO! What you were built for!! You can do it! It's your moment to shine!!!" It crossed my mind to actually cross the street to the neighbors to see if they were finding this as funny as I was...

I got one pass done and I turn around and there is Spencer, pooping on the cleared 1 foot by 1 foot area of driveway. I was astonished to see him there,looking right at me, pooping where I had just snow blowed. And he was laughing too. Like that was his revenge. Whatever. I kept going which kind of scared him. He didn't know which way to go. He knew I was watching so he shouldn't go up the driveway, but that was really the only way to go as I hadn't snowblowed anything else yet. He turned in a few circles and then went up the stairs and ran through the door, which had blown open. I was still laughing at the hilarity of the situation. Me and my goofiness and Spencer and his choice of space to poop. Ha ha ha!

My second thought was "I better remember the poop is there because I don't want to step in it or snow blow it and have poopcicles fly all over the yard. That would be just my luck! That is what happened every time I used the weed wacker!! Oh spring...I can't wait till...POOP!!!!" And yes, not only had I snow blowed the fresh poop, but then I stepped in it. Just in case you had ever wondered, dog poop smell overpowers exhaust fumes. And apparently chilled fresh dog poop stick to boots better than even room temperature fresh dog poop. Pretty sure I never need to know that. Spencer's revenge was sweet, in a sense. No kids, that is NOT chocolate snow.....

Spencer has a Spa Day

I don't know why I thought I should bathe the dogs. I know it is a pain in the fanny. But it has been almost two years since I attempted to bathe them myself. Since they came home I generally just take them to the groomers and just have them shaved. But today, I thought to myself "I can do this. They kind of stink and Emma looks pretty rough. It won't be that hard or take that long." I don't know what it is about these dogs that they seem to warp my thoughts so that I think I can do things that I just should not do.

The other reason I decided to bathe them (in the middle of winter) is because the space that I normally have rented out is vacant and it has the stand up shower. I have bathed the dogs in the summer, outside with the hose, and I have bathed them inside once or twice in the stand up shower. But it was long enough ago that I have forgotten that they don't really fit in the stand up shower. I forgot that they both hate showers.

So, I start with Emma. And she trots into the tiny bathroom willingly. But as soon as she sees the shower, she tries backing out of the bathroom. I grab her and haul her into the shower where she stands waiting patiently for the torture to begin. Apparently her memory is better than mine. What can I say, I was watching the Westminster Dog Show and thought I can make my dogs that pretty. Stupid human.

I start the shower and I have to give Emma credit, she didn't bark, shake or whine. She stood there and let me soap her up and rinse her down. The problem was really me. Despite many years of showering myself I seemed to have lost all skill when it comes to showering the dog. It was like an episode of The Three Stoodges with the Benny Hill theme song. There was water EVERYWHERE. I came out far wetter than Emma. But 3 hours later I was done. She was officially showered. I was dirtier than she ever was, but she was clean.

Next comes Spencer. He is no idiot. He knew what was coming. He remembered how much he hates showers. It was me who forgot. I honestly forgot that he was the dog who tried to kill himself rather than be bathed. And as the water hit his dirty, smelly butt it all came rushing back to me. The way I used to bathe him in the sink when he was a baby and he would inevitably poop and i would inevitably cry. How he would whine and bark and shake before, during and after the shower. The difference is now he is old. Now he just falls down if I try to make him turn around in the shower. He shakes the water off before it even has a chance of getting him wet to the skin. And he is just doing it to be a total jerk. He hangs outside in the rain, he swims in the lake. He like water, he just hates being told what to do. And he doesn't fit in the shower.

He is too long. So, if his butt is in the shower, his head is out. Turn him around same issue. He can't go on the diagonal because it messes with his OCD. So, I shower half of him at a time. This is far more of a process than I had anticipated. I had to shut the water off and hang the shower head up to get a grip on how to accomplish this task. I thought I had turned the shower head towards the wall when I hung it up, but Spencer must have used his special mind powers to turn the shower head directly towards me so that when I turned the water back on it sprayed me right in the face. Que Benny Hill music as Spencer makes his escape fully suds up.I am screaming at this point, wiping my glasses and chasing Spence into the dining room. He is laughing hysterically.

Back into the bathroom we went to finish what we had started. This time I shut the bathroom door. HA! Now I've got him!! Or is it the other way around...Anyway, Emma decides that she wants the attention that Spencer is getting so she stands outside the closed door whining. Now, Emma is whining, Spencer is barking and I am swearing my head off. This is not how I pictured this going. Me and my short term memory loss. I just wanted Em and Spence to look like the dogs on TV.

So, I get Spencer all done and I dry him off and let him go. He is one unhappy mutt. Emma loved the toweling off part. Poor Emma has some balding issues and the shower did not help like I was hoping it would. But she feels pretty. I can just tell she feels better about herself. Spencer refused to look at me. He refused to sit for his after the shower picture. He was pouting. Until the kids came home with their friends. Then he was right out there showing off his unsmelly self. Lapping up all the attention from the kids who didn't really like to pet him before because his doggie stench would stick to them. And he was still mad at me.

Sometimes Spencer doesn't know what is good for him. Sometimes I need to be reminded of why I am not a dog person. Que Benny Hill theme....

Spencer is Stubborn

Spencer and I are in a fight. We are having a battle of wills and I am unsure who will actually win this one. He has been taking off when we let him out to do his business. So, my brilliant solution is to put the leash on him. Being it is winter, and morning, I stand in the doorway and let him go as far as the leash will allow. I think this is a wonderful compromise. Spencer thinks this is crap.

He wakes me up about 5am to be let out. This is a relatively new pattern. He is an old man now, so it's pretty common for old men to have to pee at 5am. But most old men do not wake me up to do so. He doesn't bark, which I may find startling, he whines. Continuously and quietly. It is so annoying I can't do anything except cave to his wishes. It's like he has some sort of sonic whine that only I can hear, no one else seems to hear or care or get as frantically annoyed as I do when he whines. I suppose that is because of our "bond". Or it could be that other people in this house think if they ignore his whine, they don't have to walk him.


Needless to say this is not a happy way to start my day. I jump out of bed swearing my head off because of the whine, follow him downstairs (he has to go first otherwise he knocks me down the stairs) and give him the Evil Eye as I see how much garbage he has spread over the kitchen floor. And he just looks at me and whines. Makes my eyeballs vibrate, not a fun feeling.

So, after a week of being dragged around in the front yard in my PJ's at 5am, once even being pushed into a snowbank, I decide that he doesn't need to go farther than the length of the leash. Previously, I would let Emma and Spencer out the front door and Emma being the perfect little angel that she is, would stay right in my front yard, do her thing and hustle in when I called her. Spencer, the turd, would immediately disappear. And there would go at least 20 minutes trying to find him. Many times he turns up in the backyard, although occasionally he comes trotting home from one end of the block or the other. Typical. He doesn't care that it's 50 degrees below zero with whipping winds and blinding snow. Jerk.

Today, I hear the whine, I react typically and hook him to the leash. Not that he could stand still long enough for me to get him connected. He knocked over the iron shovel by the front door, tripped over the 3 sets of boots, and ran head first into the door as I was opening it. Sometimes he forgets which side of the door opens and stands at the wrong side and plows into it as I open it. Which is very amusing but not at 5am. At 5am it is just stupid.

He goes tearing out the door, almost ripping my arm off . But I was ready. I had braced myself, holding onto the door frame with my foot wrapped around the chair next to the door. Spencer looked back at me as if I had lost my mind and tried again to take off. I told him, in no uncertain terms, that he has to pee where he is or not pee at all. We were done with the morning playtime in the snow. Playtime will only happen after 11am. He was dumbfounded. He has never had boundaries before. He didn't know what to do. But he decided quite quickly how he was going to handle this change of circumstance. He would stand stock still and not pee.

So, he stood outside as I stood inside and the war began. He would have stood there till the sun came up, but I was freezing. In we come. And within 5 minutes, he is whining again. Same routine, down the stairs, knock stuff over, confusion with the door, out and standing.....no pee. In we come. This goes on 4 more times. Unbelievable. No pee.

Now, it had crossed my mind that he may have a prostrate problem. I mean, I see the commercials on TV. Have trouble "going"...and all that. So, I do a little experiment. I let him out no leash. He pees no problem, then disappears up the block. 20 minutes later, I find him in the neighbor's backyard eating yellow snow. So, he has no health issues, it's not his prostate as he wanted me to believe. I'm not convinced that he has a prostate. He was fixed years ago. He is old and fat and despite having his balls removed he still seems to have a set. This is nothing more than a battle of wills.

It's going to be a long winter. I intend to invest in a garbage can lock. Between no garbage treats and peeing while on a leash, Spence just may run away from home. Be prepared, if you see an old, overweight, pouty faced mutt lumbering up your driveway, know that he is looking for total freedom and will accept nothing less. Why? Because he is an ass.No one believes me. They look into his sweet face and think I just make this crap up. Little do they know.....

A testament to my love for my dog, or just a measure of my dysfunction....whatever. He's a piece of work, sometimes a piece of shit and always loved.

Spencer goes to a Birthday Party

If any of you are doubting the truth of my stories of Spencer, I now have witnesses. I had my annual Holiday/birthday party for the kids. Lots of people, LOTS of kids and LOTS AND LOTS of food. Spencer was in heaven with the whole kid/food combination. I warned everyone who came in about Spencer and his thieving, and Cecelia and her sneak attacks. I told Spencer stories and he layed there basking in the attention...

Children love Spence. He is huge and smelly and awkward and very funny and he farts. He's like a clown dog. And he tolerates little kids trying to ride him or crawl on him. He loves it. Rub his tummy and he smiles...teeth and all. But all the while, he is keeping one eye on any dropped or unattended food. He casually walks by the garbage can and takes a peek, snatches the plate of cake and walks on into the living room to eat while enjoying the tree and the little kids playing. Now if he could just get someone to bring him his smoking jacket and pipe he would be all set sitting regally on the blue velvet sofa. Ass.

As I am standing in the kitchen talking with a friend, behind me Spencer is unattended in the dining room. And in front of at least 5 other people, Spencer takes a HUGE wedge of cake off a plate that was on the table and inhaled it. My friend tried to warn me. She pointed and yelled "DOG!! FOOD!!" and that was all she could get out before the cake was gone. The other guests were amazed at the gracefulness. He didn' knock the plate off the table. They were impressed with his technique. That's when he knew he had them all in the palm of his paw. Now he knew that they would bow down to honor him and treat him with the much lack respect previously afforded to such a funny fat smelly mutt. And he sashayed away with attitude...until he took one step on to the laminate flooring and his entire back end went down. And he kind of crawled/dragged himself to the rug, hoisted himself up, shook it off and turned left into the family room where he slid on his belly all the way to the couch. Impressed all the guests. But also made them feel compassion for this dog who is obviously on his last legs. He's like a movie star past his prime but thinking he's still got it.

Now, after the party I was cleaning up and putting away all the food. I took the garbage outside, did the dishes, wiped down the counters and let Spence catch the crumbs. After all, he put on a good show. But I either accidental left the fridge ajar or Spencer has another cool new trick. When I got up the next morning, all of my chicken wing dip was gone, half of a cheesecake, carton of eggnog pierced and spilled all over the floor. All of the saran wrap that I had used to cover the food was gone. And I haven't seen it yet. And I kinda hope I never do.

So added to the list of Spencer tricks is refrigerator opening. I have to think he could be a very useful mutt. He could be trained to help people (lazy people like myself) Work for his meals. But his compulsion is so grand he wouldn't be able to get me a snack without eating the entire thing before actually getting it to me.

I sat him down and explained the state of our economy and how it coincides with the diet that the vet wants to put him on. See I have no money to buy dog food and he needs to eat less. Serendipity!!

And for Christmas morning I will give him the gift of my grandmother's cereal bowl for his new food portions and he will most likely give me back the saran wrap, used twice. We love each other and really think about a thoughtful gift for the Holiday. And if I am truly as loved as I think I am, he will leave it right where I will step in it with my bare feet. It's love, dysfunctional love, but love none the less.

Spencer announces his retirement

In case you hadn't heard, I just got a new floor installed in my family room. I had Berber carpeting, cream Berber carpeting. Between the dogs and the kids, it became a brownish, smelly Berber carpet. Spencer loves to lay in the creek in the backyard. It is a very shallow creek, nothing like the one he used to have, but still, the water flows over his large, farty body and he is happy. When he decides to come in (which incidentally never coincides with me calling for him) he is a muddy mess. All four legs and belly. Mud. Most of the time I catch him and hose him down. But really, is wet clean dog any better than wet dirty dog? Not much.

Between Spencer and his mud baths and Emma's tail that innocently knocks over any container on the coffee table, the rug stunk. So, I go buy wood laminate flooring. The cheapest kind they have. I have hardwoods in most of my downstairs and wood laminate in my fancy living room. Spencer has had some issues with the laminate in the fancy living room. He slips. His feet can't get a grip and he slips and falls and has a hard time getting back up. He is so uncoordinated anyway, that slipping and falling is like some sort of physical comedy. He reminds me of John Ritter. Because of his floor problems I have the rugs and runners strategically placed so that he can get from one room to the other. The funny thing is, he does just fine on the real hardwoods...it's just the fakes he can't seem to walk normally on.

I think it may be because he is stuck up. Like he is too good for fake floors so, he makes this huge big deal about walking on them. Like "See, SEE, I can't even WALK on this cheap shit!!!! I'm going to break my hip on this lousy wannabe wood floor and THEN you'll be sorry" And I have no doubt that is just what will happen one day.

But I can't afford anything super nice and I cannot live with the smell from the carpet. I get the cheapest of the cheap. The fact that it took from May to November to actually have it installed is a rant for another blog. The Guy finally shows up. Of course Spencer and Emma go insane they are so excited to see The Guy. They LOVE The Guy. They just know that The Guy is going to give them a pat and he'll even let them hang out with him while he does his Guy stuff cause all Guys love dogs and vice versa. Oh happy day for our family!!! There's a Guy and he's installing floors!!!!!

Spencer and Em were up The Guy's butt, following him out to the truck and back in, tolerating The Guy's banging and sawing. Emma was over it though when he started with the nail gun. That was a little too manly for her. Spencer didn't move a muscle, total faith in The Guy's capabilities.The Guy is done and the floor is finished. Nice. Doesn't smell, doesn't look dirty. I am so happy!Emma comes in and checks out the new space. She gives me a high five. Spencer stands in the doorway whining. He puts one paw in and barks. Barks at me like it's all my fault that he can't walk normally into the family room. He's jealous that we are in here and he isn't. He's standing there pouting. And for once Emma is getting all of the attention.

Two days this went on. I think he thought if he protested hard enough I would change it back to carpet so that he could walk without looking like it's his first time on roller skates. But I'm not giving in. He's going to have to figure it out. His solution is to push back and then catapult himself to the scatter rug. There he lies until he farts, which sends him falling and stomping and whining out the door. Yesterday, all four legs went out from under him at the same time and he hit the floor like a belly flop. He gave me The Evil Eye for that one. I mean, that's just funny.

It's just walking! He's been doing it for years! I guess I could invest in scooters for the laminate floors.That wouldn't be the weirdest thing I have done for this dog. Spencer figured it out though. He licks all his paws before he attempts to come in. And as a sweet little reminder as to where in the room Spencer has been are his slimy dogie prints.He needs some non skid socks. How did he go from an outdoor dog who ate whatever and ran where ever to needing old lady socks to get around in his own home. I guess he is officially retired.

Spencer says Happy Thanksgiving!

It's no secret that I am a HUGE Martha Stewart fan. I love her show and I strive to be like her in every way. But, alas, I fail miserably. Martha loves her dogs. She actually cooks for them. Inadvertently, I cook for my dogs too. I mean, Spencer thinks the dinners I make are specifically for him and helps himself. Martha uses only the best ingredients when she bakes, even for her dogs. I admire that. I also, like to start from scratch. If I am making a recipe that calls for applesauce, I like to make homemade applesauce from my own apple tree. I like to use the hoity-toity cheeses, and fancy shmancy spices. I wish I was Martha.

But, I am not. Not even close. But I try and that is what counts. So, last Thanksgiving I was invited over to my best friend's house for dessert. I offered to bring a pumpkin cheesecake. I was so excited to make the pumpkin cheesecake I found on Martha's website. It was a 144 step process. I made the crust from scratch (of course). The filling was from pie pumpkins,that I cooked down and pureed, the spices were from actual whole spices that I ground with my pestle and mortar. I baked at a higher degree then lowered it. I used a water bath, just like Martha insisted I do so the top wouldn't crack. I felt so accomplished. And when the baking was done, Martha said I should allow the cheesecakes to cool on a wire rack with tin foil over them. Brilliant!

I pop them out of the oven and onto the wire racks. I had made two, one smaller for us to keep at home. They were picture perfect. The kids and I stood back to admire my superior baking skills. I wish I had taken a picture, they were that unbelievable looking and obviously a fluke as every other baked item I had made in my life has been edible, but looked like roadkill.

And upstairs we troop to get ready to go over the river and through the woods to Aunt Aubry's house. The girls looked so pretty, I was looking not too bad. And the highlight of course is the the pumpkin cheesecake. All of the sudden, I hear something in the kitchen. But, I ignore it, I keep getting ready. I hear another something, but my denial is so strong at this point, I convince myself I am not hearing anything. We're ready, let's go!!

As I walk into the kitchen, I notice there is ONE cheesecake on the counter and ONE tented piece of tinfoil. NO!! NO he didn't!!!! As I come around the island, I see the empty springform pan and some crumbs. I don't see Spencer. I am stunned. I can't believe the betrayal, the absolute disregard for the 4 hours I had spent making these beautiful cheesecakes. Didn't he see me scooping out pumpkins, grinding spices, checking and rechecking the baking process? How could he? But he did. And he knew he did. He was hiding under the diningroom table. I just slowly turned towards him, and he burped.

But here's the thing, he carefully lifted the tinfoil off of each cheesecake and decided which one was the biggest and he ate that one. Because the other one had the tinfoil a bit pushed off, but was otherwise untouched. He actually chose to eat the biggest one. I was so angry, I don't think I said another word until we got to Aubry's. He knew I would be home sooner or later and then he'd have to pay for his Thanksgiving treat. On the way home, I thought about the time, effort and expense of the cheesecake, the beauty of the cheesecake and the theft and murder of the cheesecake. I then thought about Spencer and all he had lived through in his short 10 years. And the fact that he may not be around for much longer...not because I was going to kill him, but because he is an unhealthy, big old mutt. Although, if killing him were an option at the time....

And I came to the conclusion that he enjoyed the cheesecake as much as I did. And it wasn't all bad as I still had one to bring to the party. And now I didn't have to feed him, as he'd already eaten. Ya know, the freakin positives to the dog scarfing down a 200 dollar cheesecake(if you add in my cost of labor). So, by the time I got home, I was OK with it all. I was actually kind of laughing about it and wondering at how smart Spencer is to actually have looked at both cheesecakes and chosen the biggest one....what a smart dog!!

But as I opened the door I was hit with the overwhelming smell of dog diarrhea. I almost threw up my own pumpkin cheesecake. Spencer flew by me, out the door and into the neighbor's yard where he had more explosive diarrhea. About an hour later, after I had cleaned up what he had left in the house and he had stopped pooping in the neighbor's yard, we all settled down to watch It's a Wonderful Life and reflect on the lessons of The Pumpkin CheeseCake. What did we learn? That sometimes everyone needs a very fancy cheesecake and sometimes the dog eats it. Yup, stupid ass dog. Lesson learned.

Spencer The Evil

What do you find most annoying? Is it a mouth breather? A person who talks during a movie? Or is it that person who is walking just ahead of you and suddenly, for no reason stops causing you to either use every single swear word you can think of or slam into the back of them and THEN use every swear word you can think of. Cause that is my number one pet peeve and Spencer know it.He is intentional with his movement. Remember how I told you he can become invisible? Well, he uses his powers to place himself so that I fall over him. If I am sitting on the stool in the kitchen he will appear directly where my feet touch down and I will fall over trying not to step on him. Or when I am at the stove with my back to the rest of the kitchen and he lays down behind me so that when I turn around with a pot of boiling macaroni, I trip over him and boiling water goes flying.He loves apparating at the top of the stairs just as I am trying to run down to answer the front door. He really is amusing.It's exciting like a house of horrors. Adrenaline rush at every turn.

Because of this hobby of his, my kids have heard every swear word known to man and some I have made up on the spot. I HATE when people or animals do this. It's not the only time I swear, but it is the most creative use of swear words I can think of directed towards another living being.

When I was in the process of moving from the house in the woods to the house in the village, I had to rent for a year. It was a tiny house, right in the middle of the village and I wasn't allowed to have dogs. Not that Emma and Spencer would have fit anyway. It was maybe 700 square feet. I moved a 2000 square foot house into a 700 square foot house. So everything I had was precariously balanced. My mother took Em and Spence to her house which is a normal sized house.

Now, she had had one dog in her past. A fat little beagle who she loved, but was very old and unhealthy when she got him and therefore wasn't around long. Beside occasionally dog sitting Killy, she was really a cat person. And as Spencer and Emma had been, up to this point, outdoor dogs, well, you can imagine the hilarity that ensued. Really.

Spencer especially was rebelling against his new constraints. Within hours of arriving stateside, he had found every scrap of food that had been left out. He terrorized both of my mother's cats, ate all their food (in the dishes and straight out of the box stored on the counter) and claimed the "fancy sofa"in the rarely used living room as his bed. He was pouting the entire time. Making sure everyone knew he wasn't happy about this new arrangement. And worst of all, he was being treated as if he were a cat. He was expected to go out and come in, not make trouble or chase squirrels, not to steal food off the counters, not hump his sister (we are pretty strict Lutherans). He and my mother were not seeing eye to eye on how he should be treated. She was treating him as if he respected her boundaries and he was treating her as if she should be worshipping him. It was very stressful for me to watch. But the two of them seemed to come to an understanding.

She would call me with the daily update of what Spencer had stolen, crashed into, barked at, or peed on. He was house broken, but it hadn't really mattered up till now in his life. Emma tried to be extra good to make up for Spencer's idiocy. Emma became the favorite and was fawned over while Spencer got time outs. Unfortunately, my mother has a very short memory, so the whole "time out" technique didn't work on Spencer (as it hadn't worked on me years before). So, she just got use to him and his ways.

I found this totally inappropriate. I was of the camp that dogs were dogs and they were to do as humans say. Nothing more or less. They follow commands. They are to be trained. They are not cats. My mother, on the other hand, treated him as if he had the capacity to grow mentally and learn on his own, from experience. DOIGHT!

Thanksgiving dinner, my mother was putting dishes in the dishwasher after we had left. The first few times she told Spencer to get away from the dishwasher and stop licking the dirty dishes. But he didn't listen. And she didn't insist. As she turned around with a stack of dishes to load, he had positioned himself directly behind her where she couldn't see him and she fell over him and right into the open dishwasher. Where she broke her knee. The crashing of the dishes sent Spencer running, but not too far. As she lay there in agony, he saw his opportunity to eat as many left overs as he could get his rotten paws on.

The next day, I went over to have him put to sleep or some other such punishment. I figured a death sentence was in order as life in prison would not have the desire repentant effect on a dog such as him. I walked into my mother's bedroom and there she is, loopy from pain killers with her knee propped up, having had emergency surgery, and Spencer ON the bed with her and his big, stupid, knee breaking head resting on her shoulder. WHAT?????

First thing wrong with that picture was the dog on the bed. Second thing was his obvious manipulation of my mother while she was stoned out of her mind to keep the pain of her knee at bay. And the third thing was how my mother was lovingly stoking his big, dumb head and telling me he didn't really mean it.He didn't really mean it.

She went through physical therapy and a painful rehabilitation all the while insisting that it wasn't really Spencer's fault. But I knew the truth. I knew his tricks were why my mother now limps (she doesn't but it does add drama, right?). His obsession with food, his special powers. He had no idea how good he had it at my mother's house because he was so busy being a total ass to everyone who lived there. Never out rightly mean or vicious. He would never bite anyone or even chase the cats. He is never that overt in his abuses. He is much more underhanded, more covert. And therefore much harder to pin down and label as a bad dog. Not to mention, he is handsome. With long shaggy fur, or a close shave, he is a stunningly good looking mutt and so, he is forgiven even the most heinous of crimes against humanity.

He killed both of my mother's cats. But if you ask her, she would say they were old and on their way out anyway. He didn't hurt them physically, but they were cats, they saw. They knew. And living under that kind of stress takes it's toll. Fortunately for Spencer, the system is all about dog's rights. He is a rock in a stream of movement. He is an island in the Bermuda Triangle. Evil genius or really stupid dog, no one knows for sure. Except Spencer.... and the cats.