Hate to Love the Dog

I realized this morning how much I really hate my dog.  Now, she USED to be my ‘baby girl’, before our first child came.  Actually, before I got pregnant.  Here’s a little background.

My husband was a fan of the boxer breed.  He had mentioned in passing that he would like to get a dog at some point.  We weren’t even engaged yet, but we were living together (the horror!!).  He had a birthday coming up, and I thought it would be an excellent surprise.  A co-worker had 2 boxers, and gave me the name of his breeder.  Well, before you knew it, a boxer puppy was picked out and in the arms of my VERY stunned husband.  It was love at first sight for both of us.  We named her Kuma (any Tekken fans out there?) and she was our pride and joy.  We loved her as if she were a real baby, not just a furbaby. That was September of 2005. 

We were living in an apartment at the time, but then we got engaged, married, and bought a house.  We HAD to have a house with a large yard that could be fenced if it wasn’t already.  Everything revolved around our ‘little girl’.  Then in April of 2007, I got pregnant with Wyatt.  All of a sudden, she was a smelly pain in the ass that needed to just go away.  I was constantly worried that she would knock me down (she’s 72 lbs and still thinks she’s a puppy) or just jump on my belly, which she did at least twice that I remember.

Then the baby came.  I remember driving home from the hospital with my little bundle of joy, repeatedly asking my husband if Kuma was going to be ok with him.  We had brought a blanket home that Wyatt had been swaddled in days before (he was in the NICU for 6 days) and made sure she sniffed it and all that good stuff.  However, being a new mom, I was already a wreck.  We brought him in, put his carrier on the floor, and let Kuma out of her crate.  Well wouldn’t you know, Kuma was and ANGEL with him.  Never jumped, was very gentle, and to be honest, it was love at first sight for her.  They have been best friends ever since.

So every morning, when we let her outside and her incessant barking at the wind starts to get on my nerves and raise my blood pressure, I try to remember the times when Wyatt wraps his little arms around her neck and says ‘I love you, Kuma!’ just so I won’t bang my head against the wall to drown out the noise.

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