Star-crossed puppies

The worst part of visiting my parents is driving home.

Yes, I will miss Moms cooking/baking. Yes, I will miss having real food (weird how the totally not organic food we get from local farmers is still good). Yes, Focus on the Family and AFA make a long drive longer (today they passive-aggressively ignored the Prop8 ruling, and instead focused on only talking about traditional marriage and gender roles. did you know that treating men and women as equals is why we have the homo gay in the first place? also, Obama is a secret Muslim, pronounced moo-slim.)

The worst part is breaking up Arnie and Daisy.

You all know who Arnie is.

Daisy is a black lab, adopted by my brother shortly before he got married. Shortly after he got married, his wife got pregnant with twins. And they had just moved to a house with a tiny yard. And, he had two other labs.

:-/

So Daisy and her older brother Duke went to live with my parents (the oldest lab Speckles stayed with Bro). My parents are very much dog people, and we have a big yard, and then Arnie would have two puppies to play with when I visited, so, YAY!

No yay.

Duke and Arnie have tried to kill each other. Repeatedly. Multiple independent occasions. Ironically, its always been the socially accepted yellow lab that starts the fights, while Arnie finishes them by running away. So when I visit, it becomes an elaborate game of keeping the Christians and Cannibals separate.

Fair Daisy is poor Juliet.

Daisy is a sweet, shy dear. And frankly, she is smarter than some human children I know. And, she is madly, madly in love with Arnie. And Arnie loves her too. Every time I come to visit, they PLAY PLAY PLAY PLAY from as early as they can wake someone up (5.45-ish :-/) till they collapse at about 8 at night. Wrestling, tug-of-war, tag, wrestling, ball, tug-of-war-with-something-else, more wrestling. THEY HAVE SO MUCH FUN!

Heres a little video I took on my iPod:

Today when I was packing up to leave, Daisy was positively frantic. This normally calm quiet girl was fighting Mom to chase after us as we left for the car. She threw herself at the door (clawing the hell out of my parents brand new front door). Mom put her in the back yard so she could see us drive off, and she was throwing herself at the fence. It was actually really disturbing, again considering what a mellow sweet pea she normally is. When I called my parents when I got home, Mom said she wouldnt leave the back yard. She was just watching the street waiting for us to come back.

Arnie is totally bummed out.

Its heartbreaking. And theres just no good solution.

I cant take Arnie and Daisy, because I have no yard for them to play in, thus defeating the purpose of them being together. And, because of my weird scientist work schedule, I could never be at home as much as she would need me to be to pee.

I cant leave Arnie at my parents, because he and Duke will kill each other, at some point.

I cant take Duke, because Duke is suicidal when Dad goes to work. He cant live without Dad. Also, he can be a 'mean' dog. He needs to be at my parents where he doesnt have to interact with other people/dogs much.

But I thought of a novel solution-- See, Arnie is 'bad' around me, cause he is 'protecting' me. Duke is 'bad' around Dad, because he is 'protecting' Dad. Mom has absolutely no problem with any of the dogs. They are well behaved and do everything she says.

So, basically to make everyone happy, I need to leave Arnie at my parents, and take my Dad to Oklahoma. Its the only way. LOL!!!

More like this

Ah, that's a great video :) Really reminds me of my trips home to my Mom's house. I left my dog, Sparky, home with Mom when I left for university some years ago, and now when I go home, Sparky (~110 lbs) barks his head off until I let him sit in my lap.

Anyway, just wanted to say that my solution for those long drives was audio books. I found a good audio book to just be a fantastic way to pass the time. I also found it surprising just how well it kept me awake and alert, too. Basically stopped listening to the radio entirely on long drives once I got my hands on a few audio books...

By Jason Dick (not verified) on 10 Aug 2010 #permalink

I've seen this numerous times with the dogs I have had over the years. I have only ever had one dog at a time and each one got so depressed after they've had a a few days romp with other dogs. Especially those on farms or acreage where the dogs can run all day long. It's a killer to see them become depressed for a while when they return home to the city.

Awwww poor Arnie and Daisy, star-crossed lovers it seems.

By BeamStalk (not verified) on 11 Aug 2010 #permalink

Awww! Give Arnieman big smoochies on his puppy nose for me.

By Optimus Primate (not verified) on 11 Aug 2010 #permalink

Video 1...aw, happy puppies. Want to scratch their ears and call them good dogs.

Video 2...reminds me of Missy-dog when she is in "I'm trying to sleep. I'm ignoring you." mode.

Odd that the male and female dog get at each other, the case I know it's a female-female thing where a friend's lab and her parents dog try to fight to the death (after the last $500 vet bill they gave up on trying to make them "get along with each other).
I stayed away from the problem by getting a very large Great Dane. No one bothers him for some reason.

Soooo...

With my iPhone, I can't view video shot with an iPhone? Big blank white spaces for me. No puppy love. :(