Adventures in volunteering Vol. 1

I'm going to tell you something that will shock you.

Here it is: dogs chew. They chew things. Some of them chew socks. Some of them chew other things. SURPRISE!

Backstory: I volunteer for the Mid-Atlantic Great Dane Rescue League. It is an amazing organization dedicated to rescuing and rehoming abandoned, neglected, abused and unwanted great danes. Here is their website. I love LOVE danes. The bigger the dog the better, I say. I'm a small person, big dogs make me feel safe. But back to the story.

So yesterday I went to pick up Oakley. I was meeting his future foster about 45 minutes away, where I would trade her Oakley for Homer, a 2 and a half year old male who was supposed to be driven back to the vet's office for neutering and whatever else before he was fostered. Sounds easy enough right? Well it wasn't.

I get to the vet's office to pick up Oakley. He's an exhuberant young man of 6 months, lovely fawn coloring with some brownish black ticking. I say exhuberant because the boy had springs for legs. I don't know how much you all know about danes, but they grow big, and they grow big fast. He was 6 months, as I mentioned. His head was almost to my hip. Ok, maybe that's not a fair comparison considering my husband frequently reminds me that I'm a hobbit. He weighs about 60 pounds.

Imagine, if you will, a 60 pound, 2 year old human toddler. Now give said toddler about 4 sippy cups full of Mountain Dew. Try to stand up to that level of energy. Fail. Fail miserably. Oakley was full of puppy energy that simply could not be contained. It's not so bad having a 60 pound dog jump up on you, want to sit in your lap, and rub his head all over your body, but give him another 18 months when he's full grown and it becomes a problem. But it's not MY problem because he's not my foster, so good luck Sheena!

After about 45 minutes of waiting for his paperwork, I get Oakley into the back of my minivan (perfect vehicle for dane transport by the way), and we get on the road. He climbed and scrambled forward over the middle seats until he could lay on them and fall asleep. Dream transport, he was amazing. Slept almost the whole time.

I get to my destination and hand Oakley over for Homer. Sheena's husband puts him in the back of the van and I'm ready to go. Homer is a black, 2 1/2 year old male. So he's a full adult at probably 140 pounds. I'm driving back towards the vet's, and keep checking on him in the mirror. He's wrapping seatbelts around his head and having a generally good time.

Purposefully wrapping them.

As in, I SAW him circle it around his head, then circle it back off. "Whatever frosts your cookie." I think to myself. Little did I know.

I pull into the vet's parking lot, open the back, and Homer sprints off towards the office. You wouldn't think 140 pounds of dog would move that fast, but he was FAST. I chased him down the parking lot until he found a sufficient post to piss on, then grabbed the leash.

Forgetting there was a 140 pound dog attached to the other end.

Who isn't leash trained.

Needless to say I almost got a good taste of North Carolina concrete. It turns out, managing a leash, paperwork, and bags of medication is beyond my abilities. I had to juggle everything while retaining a death grip on the leash and walking virtually sideways to keep a grip on it and keep him from taking off again. I manage to meander back to close the van door, and then manage to remain standing as I am dragged to the vet office door. I drop him off and head back out to get things rearranged in the back of the van.

I open the door and that's when I saw it. The seatbelts. The seatbelts are mangled. The seatbelts are dripping in doggy drool. And shredded. Almost to the point of not being attached anymore. Homer has a seatbelt fetish. When I get home I post to the group website about my debacle and add a warning to future transports: duct tape your seatbelts down. Hide yo wife, hide yo husband...

A short while later I see a response from someone who had transported Homer before, "Oh yeah, I forgot to warn you guys, he did that to mine too." Thanks.

Next time I will talk about how I threw my daughter down the back steps in her wheelchair. I didn't really, but it made you want to read it right?

Another title? Geebus.

Yeah, hi. So. I started this blog because I get these outbursts where I need to write stuff down in some vain hope that someone might somehow agree with me or find what I say to be entertaining and worthy of discussion. No pressure.

My friend's dad keeps on me about keeping a journal but writing makes my hand hurt, but I can throw out way more words if I type. Although this capitalization is killing me. Too many years of gaming where no one cares. Yes, I said it. I do play video games. Mainly World of Warcraft. Yeah, I'm THAT person. Actually we're THOSE people, since my husband is also a "gamer". He also paints and assembles small models (although not in that order. that would be stupid.) for tabletop games.

We recently moved with our 3 kids to North Carolina. We moved from Pennsylvania. Can I just say I LOVE the weather in the south? Where we came from it was literally winter or some form of winter about 8 months of the year. Maybe 30 days of sunshine total all year round. It was miserable. I suffer from depression, so I'm sure you can imagine how deliriously happy I was all the time. I also hate snow and being cold. Considering it didn't even hit 70s till the middle of June if we were lucky, I'd say the weather here in NC is a considerable upgrade.

I tell you all that to tell you this: we do not fit in anywhere.

We do not like sports. We do not like Nascar. We like video games. We are so pale we glow in the dark. Granted, most of that is genetic, but it's still kinda sad. We go out to dinner on our once-every-5-months-if-we're-lucky dates and we talk about WoW. Maybe half the time we talk about the kids, but that's about it. We've become those parents. I'm ok with that.

Also, I ramble. I go off on tangents. I make no sense the majority of the time I talk. I try too hard to be funny. I have opinions that generally do not go over well, and I'm not afraid to voice them. I think people get good first impressions of me over the internet, then dislike me intensely after about a week. This is because I suck.

But if you've got nothing else to read, I can write lots of words for you.