Peabody's stomping grounds

Yelp... she is a street dog in every sense of the word. Over a year ago, we found her at the trash bins and at the trash bins she likes to stay.

This time last year...actually Super Bowl weekend... someone tossed out a litter of puppies near our trash bins. It just so happened to be the weekend it snowed for 2 days straight. That's right.. I said snowed! The puppies were freezing and starving. Harry was able to only rescue one... that's all he could catch.

He brought her bundled up inside... I immediately gave her a bath... and she stayed in front of the fire. And that's where she slept for the next 3 days. I was not sure how Oliver and her would interact. I did not want this unkept street dog to eat my cat. But dominance was established fairly quickly....like the first time Peabody sniffed Oliver....she got a quick paw jab to the face (it's okay Oliver does not have claws).

We ..take that back...me...I was not sure we needed to keep her. I thought it was little to grounding for us to have a dog. So for 3 weeks she was Harry's shadow. She quickly became the Chapel mascot. And for 3 weeks everyone tried to come up with a good name for her. (I was not sure we / I wanted to keep her so I did not want to give her a name. As if that would keep Harry from being attached.)

Around the third week mark, the landlord decided he was going to vacate the dog. He wanted the dog gone. If he had said that around week 1...it might have flown, but not after week 3. Harry was devastated, he did not want to give up his dog. And the landlord had the craziest reasons....

1. His daughter was allergic to dogs.
~that's a problem because of WHY?...she does not live with us and I do not foresee her moving in within the next 2 years?

2. The dog will damage the house.
~Cinder block, concrete, and tile? I do not think so....had he said she will chew up your ..key words MY / Kristie's carpets / shoes / eyeglasses / socks / and any other thing she can reach...I might have given credence to his complainant.

3. I am growing an organic vineyard.
~Again, so what? Everything here is organic. And are you afraid she will pooh in the vineyard? What about the 100 or so sheep who frequent your vineyard on a daily basis?

I think there were about 6 different reasons for the dog removal. It began to get ridiculous. The landlord was just picking on the poor little dog at that point. And of course...that's when I finally began to give in. I am such a sucker for a underdog.. literally. Remember how I love a good injustice… how I like to take up for the weak...give me a bully any day...and my life’s mission is to crush him to a pulp. (not really sure how Christian that is...or if you could find it in scripture anywhere?)

But I had had enough. We finally had housing tell the landlord (yeah, we were no longer communicating within anymore except through a third party – housing) that we were not kicking the dog out. Pets were allowed in the rental lease. And if he wanted to break the lease…..we, all of us, would move out. Of course he preferred to have the monthly rent and decided maybe the dog was not so bad.

So once we won the Dog v/s Landlord battle we decided to give her a name. Finally, after much debate and many snickers we / I settled on Miss Peabody.

So that’s how Miss Peabody became a permanent member of the Hansen household. And to this day she loves the landlord….every time he is here or out in his “organic” vineyard….she is just underneath his shadow. She follows him the entire time he is out there. She obviously has no clue he despises her or maybe she does and is just trying to bother him.

Blessings to those living with man's best friend,

Kristie