Sophie, Our massive Mastiff puppy

Sophie is not allowed downstairs so here she is waiting for me to come upstairs.

Chewing up my pillows. I was SO mad!

Lately Ive been asking myself why oh why do we have a dog. Pets have never been my forte so why on earth did I think that this time it would be different? I let myself dream, dream that the perfect dog did exist and that would be the one we were going to get. We were first persuaded by our youngest daughter who loves dogs and frequently explained how she could in fact take care of one. The idea of one in fact was quite exhilarating, how fun will it be I imagined, cute, sweet, loving. When we brought home our puppy it was quite fun but eventually reality sets in. I'll admit that Ive swore at the dog on occasion and also said I was going to kill it more than once. It has been less than a year and Ive lost pillows or for that matter anything stuffed that is left on the floor and in particular she likes to chew off the eyes on stuffed animals, shes chewed up a library movie case, a bag of hot dog buns right before a BBQ, a bag of bread, a large bag of sugar... undoubtedly scattered in sticky paw like shapes!!, every bed or mat we've bought her, Bellas FAVORITE blanket that she cannot sleep without, shes dug up things in our backyard that I did not even know were there not to mention if we have any flowers or plants bloom this year it will be a plain old miracle! She ate a whole plate of Pauls dinner while no one was looking... that's right Paul was actually confused for a split second until the culprit came walking in. Well this list does in fact go on and I am in fact keeping note for future reference on reasons NOT to get a pet. So one might ask why this dog still graces us with her presence? Well before we added another animal to our long list of had for less than 6 months then gave away pets, we made a firm commitment to keep this one, for our children's sake you know? So for now I will take a deep breath and take one day at a time. So in the end we can say that we did in fact let our kids have one animal that mom did not take to the pound :)