a shout out to those who are too attached to their dogs...

This might be me, maybe.

So Will and I went to Waco last Friday night to celebrate part of his birthday. Two words, Derek.Webb. Was fabulous, as were the opening numbers. If you haven't heard of Marc Scibilia, go look him up, he's great and he's an independant singer/songwriter...buy some of his music on iTunes. Anyway, the place this concert was held was fabulous with a capital F. Seriously, it was called Common Grounds (not quite Fay. style, but sufficiently a great 2nd) and the concert was out in their backyard, complete with a stage, cute couches and benches. We were in our partial, wannabe Emo heaven, and Derek, well, let's just say he left nothing to be desired. So as we were sitting there, and Will was trying to convince me that he didn't have a man crush, our escape artist was at work earning his freedom.

Those of you who know us, probably know our dog by now. He's interesting/weired/quirky, but really easy to love. and I.Love.Him. Okay, so maybe he only has 1 eye (he finally lost a battle with mini blinds, although he had won many previous battles, see picture below) and he might be scared of the air conditioner...and heater...and blender...and mixer...and really anything that makes noise. Trouser v. Vacuum Cleaner is always very interesting and usually ends with me shooing him outside...and him continuing to bark and scratch furiously at the front door. I think he feels like he needs to come and save me...like he could even see what's attacking me...that was mean, but I love him so it's ok.

So those little tidbits MIGHT describe our dog. And maybe, he loves small spaces. I mean, he's a 50lb Border Collie mix and he might try to fit in places that 15lb dogs fit...like in a trashcan, a bedroom trashcan...yes, i do believe he has tried this before, maybe.

We really wanted a dog that we could play frisbee with, go camping and hiking with, etc...needless to say, Trouser's 1 eye vision (and only about 60% in the other, thanks Collie Eye Anomoly) and fear of all things fire and darkness (and everything else listed above) doesn't make him the best candidate for frisbee...camping...camp fires...or anything else dog related that we wanted him to do with us (ya know, that normal dogs do). Insert: our brilliant decision to leave him outside, in the backyard, at night while we went to Waco for this amazing and great concert.

You must know though, why we made this decision...earlier in the day, he decided to attack and mutilate his 30th (approximate) set of blinds, chew and scratch up the back garage door, eat and rip up a small patch of carpet, and chew a windowsill...awesome. Did I already mention how much I love(d) him? All this in one day from a dog who never went through a puppy chewing stage...by that I mean, he never tried to eat any of our shoes, shred any furniture, etc. Really.Never.

Needless to say, we were slightly surprised, and we had Derek-plans for the night, so he went outside.

Awesome decision...

So...now back to real time. Basically, Trouser can escape from the front yard, so he dug from the back yard to the front (he's also never shown an interest in digging out of the yard), losing his collar on the chain link fence in the process, and then escaped out of the front yard. So now we have a one eyed, collarless, terrified of everything dog who is so scared outside at night he probably is doing the rabies trot (think To Kill a Mockingbird) down the street in the middle of the night just begging for someone to break out their gun and shoot him (we live in TX, this COULD easily happen).

Short story: we get home, discover him gone, I cry, find the collar, I cry harder, we look for him for about an hour, I'm crying the whole time, we stop cause it's 2am and we figure our neighbors aren't really enjoying us yelling for our dog while they're sleeping, I cry more, we go to bed, and I'm crying. We wake up at 7am (gross on a Sat.) and spend all day hanging up 300+ fliers, going to the shelter, calling the shelter, calling animal control, etc. with no luck of finding him (I cry many times throughout the day).

Around 4:45, we get a call, and I'm elated...for about 10 seconds. It goes something like this:

A: "Hi, I'm from the CS code enforcement squad and it's illegal for you to hang up signs anywere off of your property in this city".
Kate: "so what are you saying?"
A: "you have to take down all your signs or you'll be subject to a large fine"
Kate: ""We're NOT taking down the signs" (crying, slightly raised voice, which I'm not proud of)

Will interjects, takes phone: lalalalalala, they talk and it turns out, we could be subject to a fine of $50 to $1,000 fine per sign...um, did I mention that we hung up over 300. So that COULD be $300,000 or it could be $15,000 or somewhere in between. The moment that I realize I'm too attached to my dog (aparently all the crying didn't clue me in): I actually contemplate how we could get that kind of money....ARE.YOU.SERIOUS?

Sometimes I'm really ridiculous. I mean, really, really ridiculous

So I just cried more instead (the call came during our "break from hanging signs" during which I decided to get my eyebrows waxed)...I figured I was crying anyway, no one would even notice the redness. Didn't really think about the man who I would talk to as I went in to the salon....snif, wipe, blow..."do"...snif, "you have", snif, snif, wipe, "any open slots"...blow...

heartbreaking stuff huh?

To make this long story slightly shorter...10mins later, animal control called and they had picked him up...and identified him by one of our signs. Take that CS code enforcement...

We spent almost all of Sunday afternoon taking down signs...welcome home Trouser...and we're back to not knowing what to do with him. So....I just took him to work with me on Monday. Did I mention that I'm kind of ridiculous? and that our dog is weird?

Did I mention that our weekend was, in hingsight, kind of humorous...300+ signs, really?