Another Family Member

There is another member of the Smith Family...rarely pictured on the blog...will turn five in December...pure bread...deceptively adorable...very stinky!

Her name is Kloie (named after the character on Smallville) and she is our (nearly) five year old beagle. I just HAD to have her when I was a new school teacher and was stressed to the max and just wanted to get pregnant so that I wouldn't have to teach school the next year. She was our compromise - I got some stress relief and something to baby while we enjoyed the "just the two of us" stage for another year. The other excuse for the $300 purchase (yes we paid cold hard cash for her - man I wish I still had that kind of money) was that she was to be a friend for our other dog, Kal-el, who is another story altogether. Really, she was just the most ADORABLE sassy little puppy. Even her howl-bark was cute. When she was a tiny puppy she caught Parvo (deadly doggy disease) and almost died. She turned into a little skeleton dog because she lost so much weight and we thought she was a gonner for sure but then she proved what a fighter she was and pulled through! I have to admit that things have changed a little since then. For one thing we have two children who take most of my time, attention, and affection. She was always supposed to be an "outside dog" but of course her bad barking habits forced us to let her sleep inside. Now that we live in a house without a yard she is always inside. It makes me a little crazy sweeping up her hair all of the time. She is strictly trained to stay off of all carpets in the house and is never allowed near couches or beds. Of course she"cheats" sometimes and I will find her lounging on the rug in Stephen's room or on the bathmats...grrrrr. She thinks it is cool to bark in her kennel at 6:45 AM when both boys (and myself) are still sleeping so that I will let her out! No it is NOT because she needs to go to the bathroom. When I finally let her out she runs around the house for 10 minutes and begs for food before she finally heads outside for a potty break.

Have you ever been near a dog when it toots?? Let me tell you - it is a NASTY experience. You are sitting there minding your own business and - WHAM - out of nowhere - dog poop smell is in your face. Ususally there is no warning - since they are normally silent but deadly. (I will let your imagination figure out why they are usually silent.) I say USUALLY because tonight as I was looking at blogs Kloie kept "letting them rip" right next to me and they were audible - what the heck!? I was so grossed out. So of course, it inspired me to share this post about her. I tricked you into reading about something gross again. I guess I can't help myself, or maybe my life is just full of gross things.

Okay, now that I have written all of that I feel bad. She really is a pretty cute dog. She is usually quite obedient and I don't know what I would do without her cleaning up every miniscule scrap of food that we drop on the floor. I cleaned up so many doggy messes when she was a puppy that now my boys' messes are "weak sauce" in comparison - no "human" mess can compare in grossness to a dog mess. So she was invaluable in training me. She has beautiful brown eyes and is very sensitive to my emotional state. If she sees me upset she whines and cries and wants to be close to me. Maybe its TMI but she will follow me into the bathroom everytime she can manage it and want me to pet her while I am sitting there. It is anoying but endearing at the same time. At times I am ready to kick her to the curb but I know I would never go through with it. It comes down to this:

I can't live with her - I can't live without her.

*Scott says all I post is gross stuff - he is probably right. Sorry.