Re-homing our dog

This is our dog, T:



This picture was taken on the day Matt and I got engaged, in February of 2006. As you can probably tell, I love T. I really do. I complain about him constantly, get mad at him daily, and sometimes want to physically harm him (relax, I don't).

But we're going to have to re-home him. I've been dealing with T's shedding for about 4 years now, and it is BAD. Let's just say that, even if we vacuumed every day, his hair would be EVERYWHERE. When my nieces, Elizabeth and Nichole, come over and play on the floor, as kids do, they are covered with dog hair. From head to toe.

Elizabeth, who's spent the night with us several times, is allergic to T. She has to take Benadryl every time she comes over, which zonks her out. That can be a good thing, if she's having one of her hyper days:) But seriously, there are times she can't even remember what we did when she spent the night, and that's not like her. Once, and I kid you not, we were standing in the Bi-lo parking lot waiting for Matt to load groceries in the car, and she fell asleep while standing. I've never, ever seen someone do that before.

But it's not because of Elizabeth that we need to re-home T, because unfortunately, she nor her sister get to come here as often as we would like. There are lots of reasons why we have to do this:

1) When I think of this beautiful little girl,

crawling around our house covered in black hair, I cringe inside. Literally, I feel my insides shrinking up with disgust.

2. T's bark could raise the dead. He sounds like a Great Dane or Rottweiler when he barks, but he's actually quite small and wouldn't hurt a flea. Lick it to death, maybe. We've tried training him not to bark, yes, we've watched Cesar on TV show us how easy it is, but it only stops his barking maybe 3/4 of the time. And we have to be right there beside him in order to quiet him. And his bark scares the $hit out of Audrey.

3. I'm allergic to T. Before Audrey came, it really wasn't a problem, since the allergist told us to keep him out of our bedroom and I'd be okay. We've also trained him to stay out of the nursery, which shows he's a smart dog. But here's the deal; when Audrey starts crawling, she's going to be covered in the aforementioned dog hair. Then when I pick her up, I'm going to get it all over me. Which is going to be a serious problem.

We've thought of many different options, from putting him outside to taking him to training, but I won't go into detail here because this post is already too long. But I'd like to say, to all the people who keep trying to make me feel guilty about re-homing him, YOU ARE WELCOME TO TAKE HIM HOME WITH YOU. LIKE TODAY, RIGHT NOW. I'M SITTING HERE WAITING.

I am sick, sick, sick of having to defend our choice. Tired of it. I love that dog, and this is going to hurt me, and it's definitely going to hurt Matt, since he had him way before I knew him. It's easy to sit around and judge us for doing what we need to do, but not so easy when others (family or friends) could easily take him into their homes, as we've pleaded with them to do, and they won't, or can't. SO STOP JUDGING ME.

And if I hear one more person say, "A little dog hair won't hurt a baby", I will probably starting screaming and not stop for, like, hours. So if you'll help us out, take him. If not, shutty.

That is all.