I Love You Anyway

6am. Oh no the f$@@ you didn't, I'm going to END you! ...monthly, almost weekly occurance in our house courtesy of our psycho dog.





Our dog, Kito very often will get into the trash can when we're not looking and strew things about. This usually happens at night or when we aren't home. You can always tell when he's done it because his tail is between his legs and he has a very guilty look.

Very soon after the trash raid, he will vomit all over the floor. Not the hardwoods, but the expensive persian carpets we have in our house that cost a lot of money to get cleaned. Or on the regular carpet, which means we have to get Stanley Steemer because it smells so bad.

He has torn up my thousands of dollars Ethan Allan furniture - which he made his dog bed. It's repairable, and only in our front room so we had just begun to train him to sleep on his fancy orthopedic dog bed. I have had to live with tons of random clutter all over the couches in my front room because it deterrs him from sleeping on it tearing the stuffing out of the cushions of the furniture I splurged on that I couldn't afford at the time, was late on credit card payments and ended up paying three times as much for. I was so committed to gettng the furniture that it was in my divorce agreement. It's not our main furniture, like I said, it's in the front room and the damage is hideable but it made me boiling mad.

I would chase him out the door when I found the trash or a new piece of fluffy stuffing on the floor. He'd be afraid of me til he got outside then 5 seconds later he'd be reset, wagging his tail ready to come in and I'd still be pissed off. I have had to apologize to countless runners in the park, people with kids, delivery people, guests and their dogs that he has terrorized with his size and knocked over. His way of saying hello is to jump up with both paws and throw all his weight forward, sending you flying backward. The sight of him running toward you like a greyhound is terrifying, and he always skids to a stop at the last minute.

Waking up to a kitchen full of trash and a pile full of vomit to clean was never fun, and after he came out of his hiding place he'd reset like nothing happened and be ready for his walk. If he doesn't get two walks a day, he is hyper and rowdy and knocks things over. He has no impulse control. He has caused me to seriously cut my finger twice rudely trying to sniff meat I am cutting by forcing his face between my legs or around me and then up. He's strong as an ox.

He's an indoor dog, a princess. He howls so loud people miles away can probably hear him if you leave him out very long. He plays too rough and he farts all the time.

None of us ever has socks because he eats them and then we find them a day later outside in poop. He has eaten socks, batteries, money, dice, coins, hot wheels cars, panties, boxers, small towels , a mini diet coke bottle,a teddy bear, chapsticks and polly pockets not to mention whatever was in the trash every time he got into that.

He has had 3 surgeries so far, one to remove a wad of socks, one to remove a teddy bear, and the most current one, to remove another couple of socks.

He's strong, he's tall and he knows how to open doors. We try our best to keep him out of things. We are missing the remote and actually suspected the dog of eating it, but since he just had surgery and we didnt find the remote, it's either pooped out already or we actually lost it.

I have called this dog every name in the book. He wags his tail happily, no matter what you say. It has been a nightmare and I used to secretly wish he would run away.

Now that dog is sitting at the animal hospital in the balance of life and death, we don't know if he can tolerate another surgery, and he is extremely sick from complications of the surgery a few days ago. He has not eaten in a week and will not drink water or take his pain meds or antibiotics. The Vet doesn't know exactly what is wrong this time, but it's one of several scenarios, the worst being that his intestines burst and there is no fix for that. Best case he just needs antibiotics but he's so swollen and doesn't have a fever, so it's probably more serious than that. He's dehydrated so badly his lips are chapped.

I slept on his dogbed with him last night . He threw up in my hair and I didn't care. I have been up 24/7 with this dog, praying that the kids don't lose their best friend before Christmas much less at all. I'm scheduled to fly out of town to conclude the vacation with a Carribean holiday that I've been talking about and I can't bring myself to leave if I don't know if he's okay.

I honestly thought that I was lukewarm about the dog, and I wondered why the tears haven't stopped flowing for three days. If that dog gave me so much stress, why am I so upset and evidently attached? It's deeper than the kids' attachment. And then I realized that part of love is the other side of the coin - - that dog could make me go from normal to furious in a matter of seconds. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction - - I absolutely love that damn dog like he was my child . He is my child. And I need him to get better not just for the kids but for me too. There will never be another Kito. I'd give anything to walk into a kitchen full of trash right now and one of his Rambo-hugs. I am sitting at the vet right now and I used clorox wipes on my face because I thought they were tissues and I have broken out in hives. He vomited bile on my Uggs and I probably won't wipe it off, since the thought that this might be his parting gift is hanging over my head.

Kito, you stupid ass idiot dog, PLEASE get better because I love you SO MUCH.