October 19: Five Dogs in a Condo!

"A dog is one of the few things in life, that is exactly what it seems." - Unknown

"Some people will never understand how much I love my dog -- but that's ok, My Dog Knows!" - Unknown

"Did you know that when a dog sees their human, their brain secretes the same substances as ours do when we are in love." - Simple Organic Life

Are we crazy? I think that might be a firm, "YES." I just couldn't keep living at Bob's condo and leave Jean-Luc and Cosette at my house. Not fair to them - they miss me. Not fair to Bobby - he misses them. Not fair to me to be with Bob and his two dogs while mine are home basically alone. Not fair to Stephanie and Alec to have to feed or take care of my dogs. So yeah, we have five dogs in a 1,240 square foot condo (not including the deck.) We have Bobby who is a three year old Bordini (Border terrier and weenie dog), Mack the eight year old Terraniel (terrier and spaniel mix), Cosette my eight year old Berger de Picard, Jean-Luc my nine year old Berger de Picard, and Ollie, Bob's fourteen year old Labradoodle. I call Mack, Mackaroni because he does look like he would speak with an Italian accent, if he could actually talk. I call Ollie, Gummie Bear because he has these pink warty growths (he's an old guy) and it looks like he has gum in his hair.

What does it mean to have five dogs in a small space? First there is never a time when there are only two of us on a couch or the bed. Second my butt never gets cold at night. This has become Mack's calling in life to keep his butt as close to mine as possible on a nightly basis. It means copious amounts of petting. They are such attention mongers. It means a mad rush to greet us when we open the door. Bob calls them "The Horde." It means we have to make two trips to the dog run - twice a day and there are still a ton of turds on the deck. It means that we have to hose off the deck every other day, instead of once a week. It means "let's mark our territory as many times as possible - on the curtains, on the dog beds, on the side of the couch, up against the file cabinet, on the God awful rug that was the centerpiece of the living room, all the small rugs throughout that have to be washed and dried to the tune of "I've Lost F-ing Count." It means that there is more dog hair than dust on the flooring and furniture.

The good news is that Mackaroni and Gummie Ollie Bear really like me and Jean-Luc, Cosette, and Bobby really like Bob. (I adopted little Bobby before I adopted Big Bob.) Bob loves all the dogs so much. I found the best guy on Earth. Bob's house is always straightened. He cleans up after himself. Things are mostly put away and clean. One of his many good qualities. He has a Roomba type vacuum that turns on at 7:30 every morning, which really does keep a lot of the hair off the floor. So this best guy on Earth has never once complained about the dogs peeing on anything and everything - he just gets out his trusty mop and goes about cleaning the mess. Believe me when I say that it gives me a stress ball in my stomach whenever I find a puddle or a poop inside the house. However, he just calmly takes down the curtains for the fifth time and puts them in the washer. So one morning this week the best guy on Earth wakes up and smells an odor that he first attributes to me! WTF!?!? Then thinks better and attributes the odor to a dog fart - stinky stinky, so probably Jean-Luc. Then he hears the reliable Roomba getting stuck (usually under his recliner or at the guest bathroom door.) Not this morning however - he walks out to the hallway to the wafting smells of poop being smeared across all the wood floors and is now stuck at the back door shoving poop into the space between the flooring and the door. Because the best guy on Earth has McGyver type abilities when it comes to fixing things - the first thing he does is take the Roomba apart to find that it is completely held together by poop. Rest in peace, Bob's Roomba. While I remain asleep he quietly cleans the floor - washes out the Roomba - takes the dogs out to the dog run (two trips - littles, then biggies.) and never once did I hear a swear word. Instead when I get up and ask why he got the hair up his a** to suddenly fix the vacuum, he tells me what happened. One of the biggies pooped on the rug by the back door and the faithful Roomba tried to clean it up and sadly died in the line of duty. I couldn't stop laughing. The way he explained how it was his fault - "because I closed the door in the middle of the night and they couldn't get out." I mean he NEVER complained, he just continued to clean up. He was also laughing.

I don't know why, but Jean-Luc has an affinity for peeing in Bob's office. He particularly likes the legs of the rolling chair and the file cabinet. One day this week, I think it was Tuesday. We went to the farmer's market at Irvine Park to see Alec and to meet Yvette for a walk. While we were gone Jean-Luc did his thing on the rolling chair and the file cabinet, unbeknownst to us. Bob was on his laptop and I had fallen asleep doing a crossword puzzle. While I was sleeping - Bob discovered the mess in his office - he just cleaned it up, but decided to look in the bottom drawer of the file cabinet and discovered that his Living Trust was covered in piss all around the edges. While I continued to sleep he set the pages outside to dry off. While I continued to sleep the pages were blown off the balcony and onto the bushes and landing below. While I continued to sleep he spent an hour putting the pages back in the correct order. I think this is hysterical and I can't stop laughing - how have I slept through two of the funniest dog calamities in one week? Just lucky I guess. This probably sounds like the condo is always in a state of crazy town, but the dogs actually sleep quite a lot. When we are quiet, they just find a place to lay near us.

We are looking to rehome Cosette - we just can't have two big dogs and she is an attention whore. She's beautiful, sweet-natured, and loving, but she needs more exercise and someone who only has eyes for her.

In the meantime we're making it work. I'm proud of our little family even if the hair sticks to everything, but the dogs.