Rosie.

This is one of the hardest posts to write. 

Rosie is going back to the pound tomorrow, and I have no words to express how conflicted I am about it.

Hubby has been lobbying for Rosie's departure for close to a year now. And I have been lobbying for him to be patient, but after the last weekend or so, Rosie's a lost cause.

Rosie's destructive around the yard - digs holes, jumps fences, ruins veggie gardens. She only comes when called when she chooses to (many a time she's run off during an off leash walk and only come back the next morning).

Two weekends ago, I had planted in a new veggie patch replete with dozens of beetroot, kale, kohl rabi and other yummy seedlings. Over the week I didn't get a chance to inspect said seedlings, so Two Fridays ago, I asked the husband (who was working at home that day) to check on them for me.

He came back with "The dogs got in. It's all gone."

I originally thought the email was a joke to rile me up. I had been SO proud and SO excited about that veggie patch. But as the minutes progressed and a phone call was made, it turned out it was true.

Here is the yard the morning after. Hubby had already gone in and raked over most of the damage. Apparently before that it looked like a moon crater.

the aftermath of my veggie patch

Other victims included my Stevia Plant. I had heard much about the magic of Stevia. Its leaves taste super sweet and can be substituted for sugar. I finally got my mitts on one, and planted it in a pot alongside a hardy coriander (Hubby loves coriander, but normal coriander doesn't survive frost) and a mushroom plant (supposedly the leaves taste like mushrooms).

Pot

This is all that remained:



i.e. NOTHING. There is a gaping HOLE where the stevia plant used to be. Guess Rosie has a sweet tooth. *pouts*

However, when I went to replant my veggie garden this past weekend, I did find a few survivors:

Parsnip

That little leaf that's leaning across the entire pic is a Parnsip. My only parsnip left of the four little ones that I had.

I also managed to find another beetroot and two kale. Covered in dirt, but somehow not dead yet.

So that's reassuring.

Anyway, back to Rosie.

It seems that this is the final straw.

What else has she done in the last two years since we got her, other than dig huge pot holes that me and Freddie have managed to fall into?

We had to fence off half the yard because Rosie was doing so much damage to the garden. When we came back from our honeymoon, Rosie would make a point of jumping over that fence. She never figured out how to jump back though. So she'd stand there and howl and whine until we eventually let her back in. It didn't matter how long we left her on the other side of the fence, she'd constantly go back over. Husband argued that she was doing it for attention. I'm not so sure myself, but I had no suggestions as to why she was acting the way she did.

She's always run off during walks. Happened probably the second week in after we got her. Hubby went with the dogs for a walk, and she ran off. Never to return. We got a call from the pound a few days later. She'd been picked up wandering the local school grounds, and managed to hurt her paw. So pound release fees and a vet visit later, she was back at home. But her running off was consistent throughout the two years she's been with us.

The scariest was a few months ago, when she ran off, and disappeared into another village. She'd been found wandering the local rifle range. The guy who picked her up gave us directions to pick her up. We had to drive down a road until it hit dirt road, and then go for another 7km. We did it at night, with a smattering of rain. There were many moments when I was terrified that we'd never get back out alive (the road wound through state forest). I kept on imagining people jumping out of the forest and forcing us out of the car. I was so glad Hubby was with me, and I wasn't on my own.

Rosie has never been much of an affectionate dog - least not like Freddie is. If you give her a pat or a scratch, once you're done she goes away and spends the rest of the evening under the coffee table. If you stop scratching or patting Freddie he'll put his nose up under your arm or put his head in your lap, insisting the tickling/scratching continue.

I think that Rosie's lack of affection has also affected the way Hubby sees Rosie. He finds her too much work perhaps, for what she is. Personally I think that Rosie just needs a different owner. We used to take her to dog training, but life kind've took over, and we never went back after the first few weeks. Every weekend I tell myself I will give Rosie training so that she will come when called (so many times on an off leash walk she will run off, and want to be chased rather than come back on lead. It can be very frustrating). But every weekend I have so much on, that training her falls down the priority list and most times she just gets a hurried walk around the block.

I feel guilty that I haven't given her proper training. I could've got an expert trainer, but 1. they cost a lot of money, and 2. you still need to train the dog after the trainer leaves - and the fact that I didn't have time to train her anyway, makes the spending of money a moot point.

Her last home was with a foster family, and she spent it with a dozen other dogs, and spent the time egging the other dogs to chase her. She's a runner/chasee. Our yard isn't really big enough for her, and Freddie's not that much of a chaser.

So I think she needs a family that has a few dogs. That, and a family/owner who has plenty of time to train her, and perhaps doesn't mind that this dog is more like a cat in some ways than a super affectionate dog.

I always thought that I was a Forever Home Dog Owner. A Responsible Dog Owner who, once you take responsibility for a dog, never gives up on her. But Hubby is adamant that Rosie has to go. And despite me trying to put it off, and suggesting ways that we could rehabilitate her, after this last debacle, it's pretty obvious that I've lost this one.

The hubby talked about giving her up to the pound last weekend, and I mentioned that I'd probably need to fill in some forms (I'm the official owner). He found the form for one pound, and the first line is:

"I give permission for my dog to be euthanised"

YIKES. Talk about confronting. I don't want Rosie to be euthanised. I want her to go to a decent family. I want her to be loved, because obviously we aren't the right owners, with the right amount of time for a dog of her temperment.

I came home on Sunday evening in time to catch Hubby take Rosie to the pound. I reluctantly agreed to go with him. It turns out he had left it too late in the evening, and the pound was shut. It also turned out that we were at the wrong pound. This particular pound had a no kill policy, which was part of the reason why we were going to it. But since it's in the wrong council area, we couldn't drop her off anyway, even if they weren't closed.

So Rosie got another week with us.

Last night as I was scratching Freddie, Rosie looked up at me from under the coffee table and thumped her tail.

My heart kind've broke. I couldn't even look her in the eye.

The Hubby hadn't mentioned anything about giving her up again this week and I thought perhaps he'd let it go.

But today I got an email to remind me we'd need to leave the house early to give Rosie up, because we're meeting my family for lunch later on and needed to have enough time to do both.

So you can imagine how conflicted and depressed I am. I'm truly hoping that at the pound Rosie can find a better owner than us. It kills me that we have to give her up this way and that there's a chance she won't make it. We don't know anyone who is in fact after a high maintenance dog, or who has a yard big enough and sturdy enough to withstand dog digging, and has enough patience to train Rosie right and give her the life that every dog deserves.

Tomorrow's going to be a hard day.