I Have A Boy

I have a boy. Did any of you know that?? I'm sure that many of you are saying, "Sheri, you raised two boys", and all of those who are saying that know that they were full blooded, frogs and snails and puppy dog tail boys.

But this one is different. This one has taken me completely by surprise.

When we started looking/talking about getting a dog, we were thinking that a girl dog would be nice. In our heads, we had girl dogs pegged as being a little milder, and we definitely knew they wouldn't be lifting their leg on the furniture. Then somehow, this boy found his way into our hearts, and it's just amazing how much testosterone he has (even though the little nuggets are gone). Now anyone out there with a girl dog can certainly correct me, or tell me that their behavior is no different. Actually, it might make me feel a little better. Not that I would trade Brutus for the world, because seriously, you'd have to kill me for him, but here is today's adventure.

It is to die for gorgeous outside, so this afternoon we went for our usual walk. About one mile into the walk, I'm regretting that I didn't have a bottle of water for me, and also for Brutus. I made a mental note that from now on, no matter what the temperature is, the sun is hot enough that a bottle of water is a must. So we're "tooting along" as his teacher Libby would say, and he is feeling the need to go into the banks where the long grass is to mark EVERYTHING. I could care less that he's peeing on things outside. All the better, but I know now that every time he walks into the tall grass, he's going to come out with at least five wood ticks, and I stated in an earlier post how I feel about wood ticks. NOT GOOD! You can be pretty sure that if I didn't think to bring with water, I certainly didn't pack my traveling tweezers! After his fourth time peeing, I decide that there is just no way that I can possibly wait until we get home to start taking the creepy crawlers off, so I have to start doing it by hand. If anyone was hiding in the woods watching me, I'm sure there were some "city girl" jokes made.

We finished out the two and a half miles, and a nice cool drink, and I decided I would take him down to let him swim again. I didn't take my camera with me because I had already taken pictures yesterday of him swimming, and didn't feel the need to cover that one again. Oops. We get down there, and his non-testosterone producing body decided to act like Al Bundy from Married with Children for the afternoon.

First he jumped in the water and took a nice swim, and I thought "great, he's cooling down". Then he gets out of the water, walks right to the edge of the dock, holds his butt so it's just over the dirt and poops. After he poops, he scratches his feet back in the dirt like "yep, I'm the man". Then he jumps back in, and right back out again. This time he runs up on the bank and rolls around in the dirt until he is literally covered from head to toe in dirt and pine needles. Again, more wood ticks. I'm dying. Back in the water, then up on the bank to pee and roll around some more. That's it. My girl power has had enough of this behavior. I don't care if he's having fun or not, I'm grossed out, and he's done. I pushed him in the lake to try to rinse off a little dirt, and back up to the drive-way we went. At this point I wasn't even sure what to do. I couldn't let him in the house like he was, so I either needed to let him dry out a little bit, or take the hose to him. Even I'm not mean enough to take an ice cold hose to a dog, so dry out it was.

Then it was bath time. He was mad. I called him in through the garage where I can corner him into the guest bathroom bath tub, and right away he knew what was going on. I actually had to lift all seventy five pounds of him into the tub. I was about to deflate all of his fun, and he knew it.

In the pictures above, you'll notice in one how dirty the bath water is, and in the other, hold on for this, it's the grime after he's out of the tub, and the little black dots are bugs. Yep, those creepy crawling little wood ticks. Anybody's skin crawling yet?

My boy now smells like vanilla and oatmeal, and he won't be going anywhere near the woods or tall grass until I am well awake and refreshed tomorrow, because this girl has had it for the day!!