The Unsung Hero

Mickey...the naughtiest puppy in the world.

When I was a child I was absolutely terrified of dogs. My best friend had a bull terrier that I was so frightened of I actually had nightmares about it. Every time I would go to her house to play the dog would snarl and bark at me. If it ever got anywhere near me it would jump up on me and knock me over. That damn dog knew that I hated it. I could see it in it's eyes. As far as I was concerned it was purely psychotic.

Ever since then I had never really called myself a dog person....dogs and I just didn't mix.

So when my sister announced that she was bringing home a puppy for my children one Christmas I couldn't get excited. 'It's so cute' so cooed over the phone. 'Wait 'til you see it,' she babbled with excitement, 'you'll just love it'. Yeah right, I thought. Just another thing to clean up after. Another mouth to feed. More poop to deal with...and if there was one thing I didn't need in my life it was more poop........

The day my sister introduced 'the dog' to the children they were beside themselves with excitement. He was promptly named 'Mickey' by Miss 8 (who was four at the time)They rolled around with him on the floor. He licked them and let them cuddle him and smother him. His tail was like a metronome, tick, tick, tick.
OK. I grudgingly admitted it...he was cute...adorable even.


Then he came home and we discovered something else....he was naughty too.

He pooped and peed everywhere. Inside, outside, under beds, on the couch, tiles, carpet, the bathrooms. He wasn't discerning about his toilet stops.

Then, after that debacle, he started a new one; chewing things. In particular underwear....my underwear....my nice underwear. He didn't seem interested in my daggy granny-pants however, no he was particularly partial to my lacy french knickers. If he was ever left alone for any length of time he would be in my underwear draw in a flash happily chomping on whatever lacy scrap of fabric he could find.

Another thing he loved was my leather shoes. No one else's, only mine. The more expensive the better. My Diana Ferrari boots? Gone. My Midas stilettos? Shredded. My Mollini pumps? In tatters. It was that point in time that I decided cheap, Kmart shoes would do me just fine.

He was doing my head in. Cute as he might be, he was slowly turning me batty. It was after several months of this as well as his continual barking, his constant Houdini act, and his desire to attack every dog in the vicinity when we went on our afternoon walks that we began to wonder if we were cut out for this dog business.

Thank goodness we persevered.

Because one day, quite suddenly, he changed.

He went from being a naughty little scrap of a thing to a well behaved, endearing little dog. Nearly all of his undesirable behaviours stopped. He became easy and fun. We played with him joyfully in our backyard. We took him to the dog park where he could run wild without giving a hoot about the other animals present. He started to come to us when we called him. He even learnt to go to the toilet in the backyard rather than on my favourite rug.

Sometimes he can be so good that he gets overlooked. Never neglected, we love and adore him, but amongst the hustle and bustle that is our everyday life he sometimes blends into the background. But I'm sure he knows how we all feel about him.

He makes our family complete. He enriches our lives as only a pet can.

He is our Unsung Hero.