By Staff
Leada Gore, Editor
The newest member of the Gore household is a small, gray dog we've named Spike. We adopted Spike from a lady in central Alabama. She told us she thought Spike was a mixture of a Chinese Crested Hairless and a poodle. We call him a Choodle. A mutt is a more accurate description.
We took quite a while to decide if our hectic lifestyles could accommodate a dog and when we finally made the decision to proceed with the pet purchase, I had several ground rules.
We wanted a small dog, therefore he would have to live indoors.
"I don't want him on the furniture," I told Greg. "And he's going to sleep in his own bed, definitely not our bed. And I don't want him eating people food. It's dog food and dog food only."
We picked up Spike the day after Christmas and brought him home. Within 30 minutes, he had staked out one end of the sofa as his own. I was getting ready to move him when he looked up at me and wagged his tail and stretched out on the cushion. I felt guilty then, so I opted to just pick him up and place an old quilt underneath his 7-pound body.
I'd teach him later to stay off the furniture, I reasoned.
As we got ready to head to bed that night, I showed Spike his new dog bed. He looked at me and then hopped up on our bed. He burrowed his way under the covers, finding a warm spot at the foot of the bed.
He looked so comfortable and he wasn't in our way, so I decided to leave him there. He was new in the house and was probably scared, I figured. Discipline would come later, I said, even after I discovered him on my pillow the next morning.
There was still the no people food rule and that's one I was going to stick to. I didn't want a dog begging for food each time we sat down to eat and people food is dangerous for dogs.
So, even as we spent last weekend in Mississippi visiting Greg's family, I shunned attempts to give Spike a little taste here and there. He ate his oatmeal dog treats and his Science Diet food. This was one rule I was going to keep.
Then, I noticed Spike had developed a fondness for Greg's brother, Glenn. Spike sat right in front of his chair, seemingly content to join him in watching a movie. Then I noticed Glenn and Greg were slipping Spike bits of people food. The last rule was broken.
But, eventually, Spike will stay off the furniture and learn to sleep in his own bed. And he's not going to eat people food. And he will not be out any later than midnight on the weekends. And he will make straight A's. And he won't talk back.
There are some rules I am sticking to.