Yeah. No. Puppies are for single people.

So here is our puppy, Linky Soda. Isn’t he just the most cuddly, wubbly, smushy, huggy thing you’ve ever seen? He’s great. Linky Soda is everything you could ask for in a puppy. He sleeps a lot. He eats a lot. His vet bills are through the roof. He pees all over the damned kitchen, and he even poops. Puppies make you do things that you don’t want to do, like clean up dog poo and like… get puppies.

Linky Soda has been a joy. He has been a real conversation starter too! If I ever want to take the attention off people wondering about unschooling, I just mention my dog.

“So what do you guys do all day?”

“Did I mention I have a Puggle named Linky Soda?”

“Wait, what? What’s a Puggle? A dog? Oh. No really, what did you name it?”

See my point?

Anyway, I digress. Last week, Linky ate a toy. His bowels are now about 6 months old and still not ready to be pushing toys through quite yet. So, the um, “toy” (not exactly sure what it was) started kicking and screaming and decided to try and make its way out Linky Soda’s hiney hole. Nope. Not gonna happen. My precious dog, my beautiful little wonderful puppy, went HOWLING (and I mean howling – he is half Beagle) around the backyard trying to poop, (or suck it back in?) dragging his little Beagle ass all over the backyard. I opened the door to the kitchen and here comes Linky Soda, running into the house with a big giant honking turd hanging halfway out his butt. He’s running, howling, and jumping around in circles around my kitchen. The kids, (my own +1) are starting to freak out, so it’s off to the vet we go! I put Linky Soda in the back of the minivan and we all pile in and totally BOMBARD the vet!

Imagine: Me + dog + 9 year old boy + 8 year old boy + 2 year old boy all run into the vet at the same time. The boys are loud, the dog is whining, and I am laughing and smiling all the way. Something I do when the pressure mounts.

“Uh………Hello, how can we help you?”

“Well, Mrs. Veterinary technician. In case you haven’t overheard the children yelling about it, or in case you haven’t seen Linky’s backside lately, he has a big old poop stuck in his rear end. I think he ate something, inedible and we’d like someone to take it out.”

So, the story ends, Linky Soda has to stay at the vet for the day and down laxatives until he passes whatever the hell it is that he ate. Brings new meaning to when I call him a little pooper.

Linky wasn’t able to be neutered the following day as scheduled either. He was too dehydrated from all the laxatives. So… if you’re a female dog, you might wanna stay away, as Linky Soda has recently discovered his romantic side.

Here is sweet Linky Soda, now 15 pounds heavier than the other picture, in his dragon costume. I think he’s embarrassed.