Happy Birthday Morgie - 84 in dog years

Morgie is our adorable yet devilish foxhound. Today she is 84 dog years old or so I am told by my 3rd grade daughter.

We adopted Morgie from the ASPC in Connecticut 11 1/2 years ago when she was 6 months old. It was immediate love. She came with the name Daisy but as she playfully pranced around our house the first day we just started calling her Morgan and it stuck - now shortened to Morgie.

For Steve and I Morgie was our first baby. She was spoiled and pampered and worried over as any first born is. I remember coming home late from a business meeting only to find Morgie and Steve curled up on the couch together watching a football game - he with a pepperoni pizza and she with a few Pupperoni sticks. Later in the night when she made a midnight run outside Steve came clean about letting her have the last piece of pepperoni pizza. Probably not the best thing for her belly.

I'm not sure if the pepperoni pizza started the trend of eating anything not nailed down or if it is just in her nature. But over the years she has consumed just about anything she can get her paws on.

• 15 or so remote controls in Connecticut - For some reason the remote controls in MA haven't held the same appeal.
• 2 lbs container of candy corn
• a fairly good gobble of rat poison followed by an expensive trip to the vet and two weeks of vitamin K
• Countless pacifiers and baby bottle nipples
• Dirty diapers by the dozen. If left unattended with opportunity she'd pull out a string of them from the Diaper Genie and go to town. Just another reason I don't miss the diaper days.
• An economy size jar of peanut butter - impressive when you think she had to maneuver the lid off first - this resulted in a week's stay at the vet for pancreatitis.
• A full bottle of my sister's dog's $600 allergy medicine.
• A kitchen sponge - which impressively came out the other end still intact. No, we didn't keep the sponge.
• A bottle of Pedia-cure.
• A bottle of Motrin.
• Multiple loaves of bread - Each Tuesday when the milk and bread is delivered she tries to get out the door before we remember to bring the milk in and she is batting about a 200 for her efforts.
• A raw 18 lbs turkey one Thanksgiving. We had been brining it overnight in the garage in a cooler. She pulled the whole cooler out and into the front yard then preceded to naw away. Happy Thanksgiving neighbors!
• A tray of cheese and crackers left out from a totally fun BBQ. Followed by another bout of pancreatitis.

And the piece de resistance:

After baby #2 we decided two would be our limit. Having been the responsible party in family planning for the entirety of our relationship I decided I was done and Hubby should get the snip. For whatever reason he didn't agree. I made it clear that I was off FP duties and the rules were that this holster was off-limits to his gun unless there were blanks in the chamber or the safety was on. His decision was to go back to high school for a solution and off he went to the pharmacy for condoms. So it was one afternoon when I was taking the kids to a birthday party - and popped back in the house like 10 seconds after I had left to get the present I had forgotten. Only to find hubby growling, "What the F**k!" as he stared out the window. Always one to follow a rant in progress I looked out the window to find poor Morgie squatting in obvious strain trying to squeeze out a long and getting longer rubber that was hanging from her butt.

"What do you think we should do about that?" says the man afraid of a little out-patient procedure.

Since I was officially off family planning duty and this loosely related, I said, "If I were you I'd wear a glove." To which I then gleefully walked back out the door with the present.

Back 3 hours later I found Hubby and Morgie sitting watching some baseball game. Curious I asked what had happened and he replied, "All you need to know is I took care of it. And Morgie and I decided never to discuss it again."

I always get all teary-eyed walking down Memory Lane on birthdays. Don't you?

Happy 84th Birthday, Morgie!