The Lamp Shade

I need to talk about the Lamp Shade.

I know some of y’all were hoping for an introduction to how Mac Attack joined our little family…

(Yes, I am writing as though I already have hundreds, nay, thousands of readers :) )

…but y’all are gonna have to hold your horses.

Quick back story (introduction to follow soon): Mac still had his cojones when we got him. The rescue organization requires him to be neutered, but when they got him he was too emaciated (super sad story) to be anaesthetized, so we had to beef him up first.

He’s sufficiently beefed.

Being the niece of a remarkable advocate for animal rights, I was raised to value the role of spaying and neutering, so I wanted the cojones gone. (Also I’ve heard it tones down the ‘tude a little bit.)

My Partner In Crime took the beast to a local animal hospital and the snipping commenced. When I returned home, my PIC notified me that this bad boy:

was here to stay. For 7 to 10 days.

Now I think I’m a fairly patient person. I mean, I commune with toddlers on a daily basis. That’s the definition of patience, right? So I’m thinking I can handle this.

About half an hour later, I was ready to let him lick those stitches to his little heart’s content.

He was drugged out of his gourd when he first got home, so most of his time was spent snoring. The second day he was still a little disoriented and need some assistance finding an appropriate place to pee. Let’s be honest, he needed me to tell him to pee. By the second day, the drugs had worn off and he was whizzing through the house with his usual vigor. And his new necklace.

He had the Lamp Shade all dinged up within 48 hours.

(See all those dents?)

He also had the walls, furniture, and his sister dinged up pretty badly. I already knew he followed me around the house a lot. I had no idea how often he did so until he started crashing into me every 32 seconds or so. I now have many little arc-shaped bruises on the backs of my thighs, thank you very much.

Poor baby can’t sleep.

He’s having some difficulty finding his food bowl.

The Blonde Bombshell is terrified of the Lamp Shade.

And he stinks to high Heaven. (Seriously, I think the Lamp Shade is just trapping the “aroma” of his jowls and it can’t find it’s way out…)

I’m starting to think we should have let him keep his balls.

(Just kidding, Aunt Kay. I promise I’m still committed to reducing America’s unwanted pet population.)

Warning! Lewd photograph coming up!

Did I mention they left his empty cojones-basket just hanging there?

In the beginning

It all started when I was 22 and I knew everything. Well, I thought I knew everything. Until I turned 23; then I knew everything. Well, until I turned 24… Wait, this is about the beasts.

So at 22, I knew I was totally prepared for my first dog. When I found a picture of a Jack Russell Chihuahua mix on Petfinder.com, I thought she was the perfect dog for me.

I’d had Jack Russells my whole life, so I knew I could handle her. I knew.

I should pause here to explain something about my first two Jack Russells. When I was in third grade, we got a Jack puppy and named her Tippy. She was a delightful little mess that turned into a cranky old lady (due in no small part to the delightful little mess I was in the third grade) and we had high hopes of responsibly breeding her. She had high hopes of responsibly breeding herself. Two broken windows, several cardboard boxes and 6 litters of puppies later, we had ourselves a very spayed, very docile “Jack Russell.” I’m pretty sure the Jack Russell community would consider her a foreign dignitary.

My second Jack was a unique character. Okay, fine, she was neurotic. Katie had this thing about her butt. She didn’t really care if you were petting or scratching her ever. All she really wanted was to have her butt against you. Sometimes if I needed to scoot away for a quick second and didn’t want to disturb her, I’d just sneak something heavy against her butt, Indiana Jones style, and she’d never know the difference. She fell for stuff like that.

She also fell for four-wheelers.

I have the sneaking suspicion, however, that her spirit sort of passed from her body into a newly born puppy 1,000 miles away, a puppy I wouldn’t meet for five years…

So yeah, I thought I had a handle on that whole “Jack Russell” thing. Boy was I wrong.

Let me be clear: no amount of experience could have prepared me for life with Princess Puppy Butt. She is nothing like anything you’ll ever read in a book about Jack Russells or Chihuahuas or JackChis or ChiRussels or literally any other topic under the sun. She is her own brand of crazy.

And I love her.

(Although I'm not entirely convinced she was prepared for me either...)