Peanut

OK I know I said I would cover Donnie next, but I don't want people thinking that all I have ever had was adventures with is cats, because remember I said I have dogs, birds and fish as well. So instead I figured I would introduce Peanut our male dog that we use to have.

Peanut came to live with us in Nov 1999. He was 4 months old. Now we had decided as a family that we would get a dog, and we wanted something puppy like and my husband wanted Female. At this point yes as it was established I use to have a problem sexing animals, however in my defense this time it was not entirely my fault.

So I started calling the various animal shelters in search of a female puppy. I tried the one in our county but they only had one and by the time I got there the puppy was gone. Then I called the shelter one county over from us. They told me they had a part black lab FEMALE 4 month old puppy named Peanut. I was so excited. When I was a child we had a black lab dog named Tyler. I loved that dog and when he got hit by a car I was so sad. So to hear that the shelter had a female black lab I knew I had to see this dog. I asked what time they closed and was told 4:30, so I went straight there after leaving work so I could go see this puppy.

I got there and they took me in and this puppy looked at me with it's eyes from the other side of the cage and cocked it's head. Little did I know that it was a he and I would being sucked in just like the characters in the movie Marley and Me. Even at first glance I knew this was the dog for us as a family. We did paperwork for the dog(which said female on it) and then I put the dog in my car and drove home. As soon as I got out of the car my husband and the kids came rushing outside to see the new puppy because I had called them to tell them that I had found us a puppy. First thing my husband says when the dog gets out of the car is, "I thought you were getting a Female dog? I told you I wanted a female dog." It never occurred to me to look at the anatomy of the dog or that what I was told or what was on the paperwork was wrong until this very point. Sure enough I finally looked at the back end of the dog to realized He was definitely male. Remember though when I saw the dog I never at anytime had seen the back end before leaving the shelter. So my husband said we could try it and see how things went. Lesson learned here is always check all sides of an animal before taking it home.

Peanut was a challenge in the beginning for a variety of reasons. He was neurotic, scared, lovable, and even annoying at times. He had a huge love of anything leather. He would lick, bite, drool, rub and destroy a pair of leather pants or even a wallet if you weren't paying attention. He was very afraid of Lightening, and parking garages. In his prime he weighed over 100 lbs and unfortunately when he got scared he thought he was a little dog and would try and sit in your lap.

He also had a very impish side to him. We saw this first when one week after bringing him home it was Thanksgiving and the day after Thanksgiving he stuck his head in the fridge and pulled out the turkey leg and ran through the house with it before anyone could grab him. I only ever saw him get aggressive with another dog once in the 10 years he was with us, and for whatever reason he just didn't like the black German shepherd that would come to our house whenever it got loose.

When we first moved into our house we had him on a run and he managed to break the line more then half a dozen times, and when he did some how Daisey would break her line to and the two of them would take off. The last time they go loose before we put in invisible fencing to keep them safe he went to the house where the guy had two horses and he rolled for over an hour in the horse manure when my husband caught up with him. Can I say a dog smelling like horse manure gets to stay outside for a long time until the smell is gone.

We lost him 3 years ago just before Christmas. His invisible fence had broken and he took off and got hit right in front of our house by a car because it was night time. Spaghetti and meatballs have not had the same meaning since, because those were his favorite and he would bark until he got a meatball.

I think this is enough for now about him, and I will cover more about him in the future when I talk about some of the other animals in the house.