Dog Days Are Over. Maybe.

Okay I'm just going to say it: We're thinking about getting rid of our dogs. Wipe that look off your face and just hear me out.

Let's just get a few facts out on the table:

1.) The dogs are supposedly "Shane's dogs." He's the one that wanted them. He promised to take care of them. (If you have an 8 year old son this probably sounds familiar, right?) He even said that he would take Jim to work in his truck every day.

2.) None of that is happening.

3.) What *is* happening is that now that I am a stay at home mom (not to be confused with a SAHM) *I* am taking care of them. I manage their mess to make our home appropriate for our crawling baby. I manage the constant confusion between dog toys and baby toys that everyone seems to have. I turn into a guest on Jerry Springer every time the mailman incites a bark fest that threatens to wake the baby. I am mortified every time a thoughtful friend stops by and my dogs try to attack her and then run away.

4.) We fight about it. It starts with me nagging, then Shane gets defensive, and there's just no way out of it. I'm annoyed that they cause so much work and hassle for me, and Shane is annoyed that I'm annoyed. It's not great.

So. These fights have been building over the last year since I've been home. In my experience, recurring fights get a little worse each time they happen, and this is no exception. It's reached a boiling point recently.

Then one day, seemingly out of nowhere, Shane announces that he's ready to get rid of the dogs if that's what I want to do. I am dumbfounded. I did not even know this was an option. In all of my complaining about the dogs I just wanted them to not be my problem. It didn't occur to me that the solution to this would be anything other than making them Shane's problem.

You would think, as Shane thought, that I would be happy about this. He thought that I would be posting a "Loving Home Needed" ad on Craigslist before he could even get the words out of his mouth. Instead, we fought more.

We fought because I am conflicted about the implications of getting rid of them. Not the implications for them, the implications for me. It's the age old question: What will people think of me?

As I worked myself into a total tailspin about the prospect of getting rid of them, I realized that the reason it felt so heavy is because it is a concrete example that I can't do it all. I am failing at managing a house and a baby and a baby on the way and these two dogs. And admitting that out loud, much less admitting through taking action, is depressing.

I know I'm supposed to already know that nobody can do it all, and I'm supposed to say that admitting it feels freeing or something. Well it doesn't, okay? It feels like everyone else can manage their babies and their pets, and I can't. Everyone else is all laid back and patient and either vacuums every day or is somehow totally at peace with dog hair all over the place. I mean, what other explanation is there for the fact that gazillions of families have kids and dogs, but having 1 kid and 20 pounds of dog is making me crazy?

In the meantime, we've reached a compromise. Shane will train the dogs. Since I refuse to let the story read, 'It was due to Anna's inability to tolerate the dogs that alternate housing had to be found,' I demanded that the onus be put back on Shane. Now, the story might read, 'It was because Shane never invested the time to train the dogs that alternate housing had to be found. Anna remains thin, attractive, and able to manage the household with grace and poise.' Shane has until February to specifically train the dogs to remain calm when someone comes to the door. If that can be accomplished, I have agreed to make peace with the additional housework the dogs create.

Stay tuned.