My husband was not an animal lover.  He came from Barbados a beautiful island in the Caribbean where animals were always kept outside the home.  Much as I tried, I could not convince him that in Canada especially if you lived in a big city and it is wintertime, you just could not keep an animal outside.  Our animals are domesticated.  They live in our house along with the rest of us.  But my husband could not differentiate between, a cow, a cat, or a dog.  For him no animal had the right to live in a house.  This seemed to be a cultural difference that I feared that I might not be able to overcome.  For example, I was never able to get him to try ???escargot??? because once I explained to him that escargot was really snails all he could think about was the fact that in Barbados these nasty creatures invaded the bathroom and crawled around the base of the toilet bowl. There was no way he was ever going to eat those vile things!

So I feared that I was never going to have another beloved dog again.  I was the person who had grown up with dogs all my life, the child who had better relationships with dogs than she did with her peers, and the adult who longed to continue the dog lover family that had started long before my birth.  I wanted my young son who was barely three years old at the time to experience the joy having a dog and I wanted to create the next generation of ???dog lover??? in my family.  But my husband was of the opposite mind.  He did not want to hear about bringing a dirty scruffy animal into his home. 

After many a discussion about this very matter I finally had convinced him to allow me to get a dog.  The condition was that I would take complete charge of the dog. He would not lift a finger to feed it walk it or bath it.  It would be my responsibility to ???do the right thing??? if the dog created any problem whatsoever. Even though we had different ideas about what about doing the right thing meant,  I agreed.  At last I would have my dog and I was sure that he would eventually grow to like the dog as well.

In my zealousness to get a dog I took the first dog that I could find.   My uncle??™s girlfriend had to give away her dog because the neighbours complained about the dog barking all the time.  I agreed to take the dog.  The thought had never occurred to me that the same thing would happen to us.  Taffy was a beautiful Springer spaniel mix.  But she could not be left alone for even 5 minutes or she would bark non stop until somebody came home.  Both my husband and I worked all day.  We also lived directly on top of the grocery store that was owned and operated by the landlord himself.  I was told in no uncertain terms that the dog??™s barking was driving him crazy and chasing away his clients.  I had no choice.  I had to do the right thing. I had to find a new home for Taffy.

Carol Roach
winterose@videotron.ca,

Carol Roach is a published writer and newsletter editor.  You can purchase her book: Picking Up The Pieces: A Woman's Journey at www.publishamerica.com, or www.amazon.com.  You can also go to your local bookstore and order it there as well.  If you are interested in other stories feel free to join her newsletter: Storytime Tapestry at: storytime_tapestry-subscribe@yahoogroups.com, or email her directly at winterose@videtron.ca and she will be glad to accomodate you.  Carol enjoys email and responds to every inquiry.