My summer plans include something big this year

When most of my family was here visiting I was in the kitchen and my brother-in-law came along. Out of the blue he started talking about my dog. He told me how well-behaved she was, and asked me how old she was. I told him she was two and it took a few months to train her. Then he asked me point blank if I’d take my sister’s 3-yr-old dog for them. They didn’t bring Monty with them so I had no idea what to expect, other than he is very cute in the pictures I have. I told him I’d think about it, and he went on to tell me Monty is a good dog and he would love it out here. The only negative thing he said was that he liked to scratch on the door. I quickly got the feeling this guy has never owned a dog before and was maybe expecting him to be something like this:




I considered that my brother-in-law has been making renovations in their house since not long after they bought it a few years ago, and who knows when they‘ll call it done. It would be a good thing to get a family pool going on since the poker games are few and far between. Anyway, I figured the wear-and-tear factor could have something to do with my brother-in-law wanting to get rid of the dog. Now, I don’t want to take away a pet from my sister that she loves, so I asked her about it. She unhappily told me Monty had to go. That just left me confused. Especially when she said she’d trained him to obey hand signals.


This was Monty two years ago.

I thought about it for as long as I could, which was about a day. I wanted to give them an answer before they left. I was basically just a dancing puppet with my family pulling the strings. I thought about how my dog could use a canine companion. And if Monty eventually got put to sleep I’d get over it, but it would probably haunt my sister the rest of her life. So I told them I’d do it. I vowed to come up some time this summer on vacation and adopt Monty.

Later that day I was talking to one of my brothers and told him the news. He said Monty was stupid, and my dog was smart. Instead of wondering if I’d made the right decision after all, I chose to feel good about someone other than a neighbor who compliments my hair calling my dog “smart”. My oldest son has been calling my dog “stupid” in a loving way for the past year.

When I told my kids about my plan, all but one of them was happy. Unfortunately, when I’d mentioned earlier to my oldest son in a “ha ha” and I-told-you-so-way that my brother called my dog smart, I let the part slip out about him saying Monty was stupid. Where is the duct tape when I need it on my mouth?

The day the family reunion officially ended and they all hit the road, I called my dad. What do you know, he was taking care of Monty for them while they were away. And he didn’t have anything good to say.

Uh oh.

When my ex found out we’re getting another dog, he asked me if I’d take one of his dogs too. I found it extremely easy to say, “No.”