Our Dog, Merry

Is how we raise our dog any indication of what kind of parents we'll be? We have a five year old border collie, Merry, that we both love dearly (or, at least my husband does). We've had her since she was 8 weeks old and we were as excited as new parents. She was our baby. Our pride and joy.

This just begs the question, is how we raise our dog any indication of what kinds of parents we'll be? Never mind that we've never been able to keep a plant alive for longer than a day or even a fish alive for longer than a month (even those super-hardy gold fish). But, our precious little pooch has been alive and well for 5 years under our care...not so bad.

Here's a list of things that we've done to ensure her health and happiness:

We praise her for begging for food (at least she's not barking, right?)

Her training leash is on 24/7 (how else could we control her?)

We were always firm on NOT giving her people food, but we let her lick our plates (see #1)

She gets a walk probably about 50 times/year (no wonder she has all this crazy energy).

We lock her in our bedroom for 8 hours a day while we're at work (sorry pooch, we actually do feel bad about this one).

When we first got her, she used to bite our toes. I threatened to throw her out the window. I still do threaten this. Daily.

She scavenges in the garbage regularly.

Her punishment is to be shut into the bathroom.

She walks into the bathroom all by herself when she's been bad.

She likes to chew coins.We give her treats when she chews coins (so she'll let go of them!).

Daddy is definitely her playmate, and I am her caretaker (which may explain why she doesn't get her nails cut, is rarely brushed, and hasn't been bathed in months. She also had tuna breath, which we can't figure out, but keep hoping it will just get better).

She eats her own puke (all dogs do this, right?).