He wasn't really a Christmas gift, but the timing makes it seem like that.
Saturday, December 20, 2008, Beloved and I became the recipients of a second miniature chihuahua to take up space, breath up air, eat up food, and pee up furniture in our house. His name was Karma, but (and don't tell the previous owners this) we think that's a dorkasaurus of a name for a dog, so we have renamed him Connor. (Yeah, I know, that's not a real doggy-sounding name either, but it starts with the same consonant sound...we're hoping to keep his burp-sized brain from imploding.)
I'm writing about Connor because he has already brought a seismic shift to my farm-boy-transplanted-to-the-suburbs sensibilities.
Here's the story: Connor was given to us by a family that realized they just weren't a good fit for the little feces factory. Their kids were too young to play with him like anything other than a ragdoll. He ended up being kept in the basement most of the time, partly out of protection for him, methinks. I also think that he was never taken outside to take care of the final steps of the digestive process.
So, when I physically carried him outside to show him where he should be relieving himself--instead of on every available piece of carpet, furniture, or family member in the house--he was a bit confused and took quite some time...enough time that his uninitiated, puny pink paws perhaps got the tiniest bit bit by frost.
Which leads to the aforementioned shift in sensibilities.
I, Dewey Roth, who grew up on a farm in Northeastern Indiana with fairly feral cats; played with dogs that were never allowed in the house and ate nothing but table scraps; who always thought that animals were capable of taking care of themselves......I am sitting Connor on my lap and swaddling his paws in cloth before every trip outside.
So help me, though, I refuse to lay him in a manger.
I'm writing about Connor because he has already brought a seismic shift to my farm-boy-transplanted-to-the-suburbs sensibilities.
Here's the story: Connor was given to us by a family that realized they just weren't a good fit for the little feces factory. Their kids were too young to play with him like anything other than a ragdoll. He ended up being kept in the basement most of the time, partly out of protection for him, methinks. I also think that he was never taken outside to take care of the final steps of the digestive process.
So, when I physically carried him outside to show him where he should be relieving himself--instead of on every available piece of carpet, furniture, or family member in the house--he was a bit confused and took quite some time...enough time that his uninitiated, puny pink paws perhaps got the tiniest bit bit by frost.
Which leads to the aforementioned shift in sensibilities.
I, Dewey Roth, who grew up on a farm in Northeastern Indiana with fairly feral cats; played with dogs that were never allowed in the house and ate nothing but table scraps; who always thought that animals were capable of taking care of themselves......I am sitting Connor on my lap and swaddling his paws in cloth before every trip outside.
So help me, though, I refuse to lay him in a manger.
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