Whistling Dixie

Or rather whistling for Dixie....



Meet Dixie. All 78 lbs of her. Oh, did I mention she is only 9 months old?
You see, Dixie is a Great Dane. That's right. The biggest mammoth dog there is. How on earth, you ask, did a non-animal loving person like myself go from having no pets at all to having a Great Dane roaming her house?
Of course there is only one answer: My super animal-loving husband whose dream it has always been to own a Great Dane. I don't know how he convinced me. It all seemed to happen so fast. He began perusing the classifieds, making mention here and there and then one day this dog was too good to pass up and we'd never find another one like it. Her owner was going to take her to the animal shelter because she worked two jobs and couldn't take care of her...blah, blah, blah.
Tears were shed (on my part), promises made (on his part) and next thing I know Dixie arrives in all her glory.
As dog's go, Dixie is picture perfect. She is fully house-trained and has never had an accident (which is a good thing, you should see the size of those....well, you know), in fact she physically motions for you to take her out when she needs it. She is completely docile and as of yet has not manifest any signs of a mean streak at all. She plays with the kids and excitedly waits by the door in the morning for them to come out. She doesn't jump up on you or lick you and avoids the furniture. She can sit, stay, lay down, shake and all that nonsense. There is only one problem......she's a dog.
See no matter how much David bathes her and brushes her and takes care of her (which he is doing like a champ), she is still a dog which essentially equals foreign dirty matter taking over my house in my mind. And although she doesn't lick, like all dogs she likes to sniff and because of her stature, her sniffing is just the right height to:
1) Put her big wet nose right in the kid's faces
2) Put her big wet nose on top of our table to see what's going on
3) Put her big wet nose on you (and possibly your face) while you are sleeping unaware in your bed.
This is why I have taken to shutting the kids' doors at night and putting up a baby gate on ours. It is my worst fear to wake up to Dixie's big wet nose all over my face in the middle of the night.
And just to test it, I left Ashton's door open the other night (not mine of course, the children are the guinea pigs) and sure enough at 5am I hear Ashton calling for me to tell Dixie to stop sniffing his bed.
Well, we conducted another test and discovered that it all has to do with David. The last few days I have come down with a terrible cold and because we don't want David to get it too or spread to the kids, he has slept on the couch so I can keep my coughing and sniffling to myself. Well, sure enough, Dixie hasn't so much as wandered upstairs for a moment to all our opened bedroom doors.
Nope, she is perfectly content cuddled up next to the couch where she knows David is sleeping soundly.
To be honest, this whole situation has me burning the candle at both ends: literally and figuratively. In one sense, things are crazy busy with work and just keeping up with that, the house, the kids and now having to worry about this big dog is taxing. And in the literal sense, I actually have candles burning at both ends of the house because I refuse to let the "dog" smell set in.
Now some of you may know that we tried to do the "dog thing" before about a year and half ago right after Zander was born. We had a little rat terrier puppy that was just adorable (well, to everyone else. To me she was just another accident waiting to happen). That summer, Ashton was diagnosed with Asthma and we finally discovered that it was the puppy who was triggering his attacks.
David came up with this notion (after much research he claims) that larger breed dogs don't shed as much and people are usually not as allergic to them. I laughed at this, but thus far Ashton has had no reaction. So great....that was my only real chance for an out.
She has been here for a little over a week and we are still calling this our "trial period" but I know I've lost. The dog freakin loves David and he takes such good care of her (and I'm getting some extra chores out of him to boot). The boys are taking to her too so now I am just outnumbered.
She does have a pretty cute face....


And she does this really cute thing when people are being loud and she is trying to sleep, she covers her ears with her paws.


(her eyes look kinda creepy in this one because they are half open)



So I guess this is my new life. A reluctant pet owner. Maybe that will change with time, after all, I did have a dog once upon a time whom I loved. She even slept in my room. But that was a long time ago, let's not get carried away.
Here Dixie is playing with some of her toys that my mom gave her (which she destroyed in one night. Note to self: Little dog toys are not meant for Great Danes).




The poor elephant never had a chance....

But despite everything, I have had a few moments of satisfaction as a new dog owner. Just tonight David had set some delicious Costco cookies he had nabbed from my parent's house on the coffee table while he got some milk and gave Dixie some food. The next thing he knew Dixie had swiped one off the top leaving him with only one dog-tainted cookie left. He was pretty mad and I giggled a little under my breath.
Earlier Dixie became curious about the fire place (ours is one of those fake gas ones with a glass cover). So curious, her big wet nose made contact with the hot glass and we heard a little sizzle as she jumped back in surprise.
I couldn't help but feel a little sense of poetic justice at these two instances. I guess I have a long way to go.