Tattoo'd Jesus Freak, Letter 3 from Hell

I’ve always been more of a cat person than a dog person.  But I do like dogs and  usually try to keep one dog in the house just to look out the window, bark, and scare off the boogie dudes.  Now, on deeper thought, this is a 1200 sq ft home to essentially four teenagers and three adults (plus friends), 8 cats (last count), a turtle, 2 birds and a chicken  - plus the dog.  Only the seriously criminally insane, coming off of a bad hangover and taking crappy meds would consider breaking into our home.  Heck, why break in?  Come in, grab a beer, play a video game.  Who would notice?

So back to the dog.  We’ve had some successful, long-term dogs - and some short term dogs that soon found new homes.  The short termers were usually ones that woke me up at night, jumped over or dug under the fence.  I’m only willing to donate so much money to the pound for babysitting after all.

One of my short termers was a lovely, hyperactive black beast named Rocky.  He was smart, delightful, and a jumper, but before I found him a new home, I almost killed the poor puppy. 

My home is open to about anyone that wanders in, and often they wander in and stay awhile.  At the time of my attempted dog murder, my niece and nephew-in-law were living with me.  Several of my outside cats had turned up missing (I’ve never been quite sure how something can turn up and be missing - but there you go).  Anyway, my nephew informed me that someone, probably from the apartments down the street, had been letting their dogs lose at night, and these dogs had been killing my cats.  Well, that was a problem that needed to be solved.

I needed a plan.  While I am, indeed, a tattoo’d Jesus freak, sometimes my mind goes in bad directions, I am not immune.  As you will see, I have lessons to learn, and usually do so the hard way.    In this case, I had a problem with some animals, some big dirty vicious rats, calling themselves dogs, that were killing my cats.  My husband worked for a pest control company.  He had rat poison.  Problem solved.  Right?

So each night for several nights I placed a big green block of rat poison out in the front yard, next to a stuffed cat, and then hung out on the roof to make sure that the wrong animal didn’t come up and eat it.  During the day, having not been successful, I would place the rat poison in a jar on the roof where it would be safe from my pets and kids.  I wasn’t getting any sleep, but otherwise this was perfect.

Ha!  Somehow, probably with the help of one of my cats, the jar of poison was knocked over, rolled off the roof, hit the fence at just the right angle and fell inside the backyard into the carport.  This looked like an impossible feat - but it happened.  Rocky, being the dog he was, quickly ran over and ate the poison.  I, being the person I am, freaked.

I called the vet.  What do I do!  Well, there’s not much you can do.  Feed him charcoal and make him vomit, bring him in if he survives that and we’ll give him a shot of vitamin K.  So I grabbed my niece.  “We gotta make the dog puke!”  The only charcoal I had was from the grill.  So I crumbled it up and shoved it down the poor dog’s throat.  When Rocky had ingested enough charcoal to barbecue Manhattan, it was time to do the deed. 

Just how do you make a dog puke?  My lab once ate a baby diaper I put outside for two seconds, because it was too nasty to keep inside long enough to clean the baby.  WTF.

Duh.  You put a spoon down his throat.  How else?  Then more charcoal.  Then the spoon.  Then more charcoal.  Then the spoon.  My niece and I struggled, holding the poor beast, torturing him relentlessly until he wished we had just left him alone to die.

I am very glad to say it worked.  Rocky survived the charcoal and puke attack and received his vitamin K shot.  All was well.  Or so I assumed.

Along with the cats, the dog, fish, turtles and various other sundry animals, at the time we had several chickens in the backyard.  The next day I came home from work to find one of my chickens, feet straight up in the air, dead as a doornail.

Next to my chicken was a huge pile of Rocky poo - streaked with green rat poison.  Obviously my chicken’s last meal.  All I could think was…

Talk about “Eat Shit and Die.”