The Attack Pets and "Baby Dog"

Kayli With Her "Baby Dog" Teddy
Picture by Connor

My children have mostly been deprived of pets.  Someone gave us a bird once, but it was a scary attack parakeet.  I've had a lot of parakeets in my life, but this one was mean!  If I tried to get his food dish to refill it he'd latch onto my finger and hang on -- drawing blood.  I had to get really good at avoiding his sharp beak!  We gave it to a friend who had a bird room in their house with lots of birds.  They said he stayed mean.

Then we got a cat.  Somehow I remembered Derek agreeing to me getting the cat, but he swears that no such conversation took place.  Oops.  Our girls liked the cat okay, but Derek did not.  It scratched the paint on the cars, and would stalk baby Connor and pounce on him if we weren't watchful.  Having the cat made me aware that I had become really allergic to them, and our cat mostly decided to stay at the neighbor's house across the street.  They came to inform us one day that they thought he had been poisoned and they would take care of it.  What nice neighbors.

The goldfish we had don't count.  I felt like we put them in tiny torture chambers where they were stuck waiting for me to clean the bowl because the owner of the fish wasn't going to do that!

Sometimes, years after Midnight the pouncing cat, I mentioned to Derek that I thought a dog would help one of our kids with anxiety.  We didn't really want to take care of a dog though, we were too busy trying to take care of the children to want something cute, furry, and naughty to take care of!

And then there was the day that grown up Kayli came home saying, "I did a thing".  She was holding a little black and white puppy named Teddy.  Derek said he must be an outside dog, but naturally, over time, Teddy has evolved into a wherever he wants to be kind of dog.  This has all worked out well.  The dog does help with the anxiety of at least 3 of my children.  Kayli takes care of him because she's his "Mom", and the rest of us play with him, and pet him, and laugh at the silly things he does.  He's really just like a furry toddler with four legs.

Kayli misses Teddy when she's at work.  I took this picture of him so she could see him
having fun.  His favorite toy seems to be that flat, black, basketball.  He loves chasing it down
when we throw it, and he usually brings it to whichever one of us walks into the back yard.
He is ever hopeful that we came out to play.

I like this one.  Teddy is a funny dog.  He can run really fast, and jump really high.  Derek and Jake
have had to fix gates many times, making them taller because when Teddy gets worried that his people
might never come back he panics and is one determined escape artist!

Aww.  Teddy the Baby Dog loves his Mom.