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.