Happy Birthday Scout!

First of all, let me say - Way to throw down the gauntlet TBF!

Secondly, I'd like to thank Mrs. TBF for calling me "handy". I am very proud of my skills around the house. Today, I am applying some joint compound, priming, painting and hanging a towel bar in the boys' bathroom. Pfft...kids stuff.

Now for the obligatory post.

Yesterday was Scout's second birthday! She is such a "second child" - no presents, a half-hearted treat and no celebration. Zoe has gotten presents and cake each year of her life. However, I did sing to Scout.

I have a love/hate relationship with Scout.

I love her because..
• she is an animal and I love animals
• she is very affectionate
• she is relatively calm most of the time
• she has a sweet "who me?" kind of disposition

I hate her because...
• she is a two year old Lab and there is no worse animal on the face of the earth than a two year old Lab
• she is a chewer
• she ruins something in our house at least once a day
• she is responsible for a large pink stain on our new carpet (the result of her chewing a packet of raspberry Crystal Light powder. Did you know that if you try to clean this stuff with water the stain just gets bigger and bigger?)
• she is uncontrollably strong

I try to wear her out with a walk each day. I swear, there is nothing that will wear this dog out. We get back to the house, all sweaty from our walk and she looks at me, tongue hanging out, tail wagging like "That was fun. What's next?"

She is so exuberant in her love of people and other dogs that she has pulled me down at least 4 times. I am no small person. I weigh in the vicinity of 140 pounds. She pulls me like I am Karen Carpenter on a windy day.

The first time she pulled me down was shortly after we moved into our new house. A neighbor man was out walking his two Labs, both off-leash and both relaxed by his side. I figured surely his Labs were too old to misbehave like ours. I was wrong. The younger one is the same age as Scout.

While his dogs sat at his side, Scout pulled me this way and that. The man, "J", was talking away when suddenly Scout pushed me backwards. My fancy running shoe with the hollow-ish sole caught on a ground-level gas pipe cap (?).

What happened next was a big blur.

I remember looking up and seeing my legs up in the air. Just legs and sky. One shoe was missing, having been flung off my foot. "J" didn't skip a beat. He kept talking away as if I were still standing next to him. He didn't ask if I was okay, he didn't offer his hand to help me up. I finally had to interrupt him.

"Um, J, do you mind holding Scout's leash so I can put my shoe back on?"

Yesterday, I took Scout walking in the old neighborhood. I had on my sporty, short Nike skirt, sporty pink shirt, baseball cap and iPod. I was really getting into the up-tempo song I was listening to when Scout started tugging me in the direction of two small dogs up ahead. In order to avoid another "situation" I veered her into the street to bypass the two yapping mutts.

Let me just take a moment out to rant about how much I hate retractable leashes. The owner has no control over their dog while they are on a retractable leash. We keep Scout on a short leash with a spiked choker chain. It's the best we can do but still doesn't prevent her from pulling at another dog.

Okay, back to yesterday. I steer Scout into the street while the owner of the two little dogs on retractable leashes let's them extend the cord to it's fullest point over in the direction of Scout and me.

Again, what happened next was a big blur.

One minute I was up and walking, the next I was flipping forward over the back of Scout and onto the pavement. (Think someone dancing "the worm" and you'll have a pretty accurate image of my position.) I heard myself emit the sound "Uuhhh!" when my chest hit the ground. In a nano-second my thoughts went to my skirt flying up and my iPod and Blackberry scraping the pavement.

At least this guy hollered out "Are you okay?"

In my nastiest tone, I hissed, "Yesss."

Now I feel bad because I wasn't angry with the man, just Scout. I mean, I'm now 45 years old! I may have brittle bones!!

Today, I'm sporting a few band-aids, a couple more scrapes, two bruised nails and some very sore muscles.

Happy friggin' birthday Scout.

I love you, you big lunk.