Janet talked about getting a dog for a good while.  She wanted a little one, a lap dog, about 5 pounds full grown.

Fine with me.   

If I had another dog, I want an outside dog, a Golden Retriever, maybe a Rottweiler. 

Sometimes wants aren’t practical. We have plenty of room for a big dog to roam, but our neighbors have 17 or 18 horses. The fence keeps horses in, but I have no way to keep a big dog out. I’m content with that.

So, when Janet started finding pomapoo puppies on line (half Pomeranian, half miniature poodle), I was que sera sera.

She settled on looking at one in a nearby town.  They texted pictures of two puppies left, along with a video of a little monkey they have as a pet playing with the puppies. 

The Pomeranian dad was supposedly 3 pounds with the mama allegedly an 8-pound miniature poodle. 

The smaller, calmer one was the one Janet picked.  It was December 13, before Christmas, so she named it Joy for the season, and for the fruit of the spirit.

I’ve since wondered if Satan, or maybe Little Lucifer, for thorn in the flesh, would’ve been a better name.

Anyway, life at our house changed, a lot.

Joy only weighed 2 pounds when we got her, but was “expected” to be about 5 or 6 pounds, at the most.  She’s 10.2 pounds now and growing. 

Janet keeps asking the vet how big Joy will get. The vet just shrugs and kindly smiles, “We’ll see”.

I’m pretty sure the couple peddling Joy sold us a bill of goods.

I don’t even think she’s a pomapoo. She’s more like a Ferredane, half-crazy wild ferret, half Great Dane! The seller’s strategy of not clarifying the facts by focusing on the spider monkey videos worked on me!

Joy started off cute as a little bug, until the first night with us in a room by herself.

It’s amazing how much noise a 2-pound furball can make!  Whimpered, whined, cried, all, night, long!    

Like people do, however, Joy immediately took to Janet. 

Like people do, however, not so much with me. 

Janet was making fast work of potty training Joy.  But when I was there, Joy would stop ten feet away, stare directly in my eyes, and drop a load right on the floor!  Yuck!

I thought the sawed-off mongrel would never be potty trained!

On top of it all, I’m sure the devious little whisker bucket knew the office was my only room in the house!  

She’d sneak in there and chew up a plant, then carry bits and pieces of it all over. Joy chewed an electric cord in two, and tried to turn my office into her personal Porta Potty. That little pomapoo has ten times more poo than poma in her!

Several times early on I stepped in it, bare footed.  As they say in this neck of the woods, that dog don’t hunt! 

Now, she’s gotten good about going to the back door, waiting and looking when she needs to go. 

She gives Janet the puppy dog eyes when she needs to go out, but me, she casually glances my way like I’m human riff raff. I’m positive she’s telling me, “Come on! Let me out, you filthy peasant!”

It’s great she likes to play though. Her favorite day of the week is Sunday because the grandkids are there for Sunday Lunch and want to play with her.

She gets carried, doctored, babied, and tortured, and loves every minute of it!  She has a great temperament, and just endures whatever the little ones dish out.   

It’s different when I come home from work though. Joy hears the door open and starts barking like she’s Rin Tin Tin while hiding behind the coffee table. I just snarl back, “Oh shut up, Joy!” Realizing it’s me, she still barks, but then wags her tail.

The other day I came home and Janet was in the back room. I seized the opportunity by grunting, then rushing in, swinging my arms like a hungry gorilla with back problems.

Joy went spastically nuts! She dove under the couch growling, secretly hoping the old saying that all dogs go to heaven was true.

I LOVED it!

One for me. Zero for Joy.  

Her thing the last couple of months is to find sticks, leaves, grass, and of all things, pruned thorny rose bush stems. She brings them to the back door, starts chewing and eating them.

There’s nothing quite like seeing a little gray faced dog gnawing on a thorny rose bush stem, the igmo!

Last month I came home after work and Joy didn’t bark as usual.  She was sick, throwing up.  Janet was on the phone with the vet describing how Joy had just come in after eating part of a decorative plant outside, a sago palm. 

Sago palms are deadly to dogs.  We didn’t know. 

It’s been in the backyard all seven years since we bought our current house. A single bite and the poison immediately sets in. Vomiting. Dehydration. Kidney damage. Liver failure. Death.

We rushed her to the animal hospital where they gravely warned that even if she made it, she may never be the same. 

They took her gently from Janet’s arms to rush her to the back, hook up an IV, and pump her full of charcoal to neutralize the poison that hadn’t already entered her blood stream.

Janet’s voice quivered as they walked through the doors, “Bye, Joy.”

I thought it, but couldn’t say it.

“Good bye, Joy”.

Sometimes in life, you don’t realize what you have until you lose it. Maybe that’s just human nature. I don’t know.

Despite my Joy grievance list, I was far more attached than I ever realized.

Five days later, we picked up a weak, much thinner, generally lethargic little dog. She even gave me the puppy dog eyes, and sure to form, just wanted to sit still in your lap.

The vet still wasn’t sure, and Joy had a boatload of daily medications.      

The next two weeks Joy came back from the brink of death, and before long, she was back to her shenanigans. Very fortunately, her blood work shows liver and kidney functioning is perfect.

But then yesterday she was spayed at the vet’s office. She’s presently walking around with the cone of shame on her head.  She’s pathetic, moving slow, accepting pain medication like a canine junkie.

The cone kind of makes Joy look like a dog flower, or possibly a blooming idiot, but either way, you can’t help but hurt when she hurts. 

I find it strange.

Really. 

We have 35 people in our immediate family. Thirty-five! We love each, and every one!

And yet, there’s still room in the heart for a furry family member, even when you don’t want to admit it. 

Oh the Joy, the Joy, dog gone it!