March, 2005

Today I attended the first in five Parenting Techniques For Fathers classes. Mrs Levee attended one of these earlier in the year and said I might find it useful. So off I went. . .

There was a fairly small group of guys in the room when I arrived (late!). The leader, a lady called Jackie, asked us to break into groups of two and to talk about our family situations: how many children we had, married, unmarried, separated. The object of this was that, rather than introduce ourselves, we would introduce the other person we spoke to.

Anyway, I got talking to a guy called John who was slightly younger than me. John had two young twins with his girlfriend, but the couple have since separated. “She was mentally abusing me.” he said, with a perfectly straight face. Uh-oh.

After a little while, it became apparent that John was an extremely negative person. Problems abounded everywhere. With his kids, his ex-girlfriend, his mother and even himself. He mentioned that he had been seeing a psychiatrist recently.

My turn was pretty straightforward, touched on little details about myself, Mrs Levee and the kids. I mentioned that Ray was lovely and that she was very self-assured, Jay was at an age where he was climbing and getting into scrapes. I also mentioned a long-standing parental gripe of mine - that Mrs Levee and I didn’t get to spend enought time together on our relationship.

Imagine my surprise when John introduced me! Firstly, Ray was a bossly little terror who ruled the house. Jay was a ‘bit of a wild wee man - he might have ADHD‘ and to top things off, Mrs Levee and I were on the verge of divorce. Please!

I was momentarily stunned. I assumed I had used pretty clear language and that my affection for my wife and children had been perfectly clear. I can only guess that his own negative outlook had completely clouded his interpretation of what he was being told. Needless to say, I set the record straight, but I did sort of feel sorry for the guy.

Saturday, March 19th, 2005 // Family Life

Today we finally faced the reality that we couldn’t care for our dog anymore.

We’ve had Cindy (a black labrador) since about November 1998. When we first got her we were young and had just moved into a rented house. Cindy lived in the house with us, despite the difficulty of removing her hair from the carpets! Because she was with us all the time, she was well-fed, well-walked and well-petted. For a short while (until our first child came along) she had a little friend called Kitty who was a collie cross. Both of them were rescued from local animal shelters.

After a couple of years, we bought our first house and moved in there. For a while, Cindy and Kitty lived in the house with us until our first child was born. We decided, for hygiene reaons more than anything, that the dogs should stay outside from that point.

So, we built a run for the dogs. They made repeated attempts to escape, even running up the panels of the run to jump over the top. Their most spectacular escape was when they stood on top of the kennel and tore a hole in the wire which was - at this stage - covering the top of the run. Unfortunately, Cindy was in heat at the time (unknown to us). Both dogs managed to clamber out the hole and away.

From what we know, after she escaped, she wandered out to the main road where we usually walked her, and was hit by a car. The driver didn’t stop (apparently), but Cindy now had a broken front leg. A man walking his dog came across her and took her home. He notified a few vets and animal shelters and that’s how we came, after several days, to track her down.

We took her straight to the vets, where they were able to put a pin in to fix her leg. However, she never really regained full use of her leg again and about two years ago managed to somehow break the leg again. When we returned from work one day we found her sitting at the back door with her leg at a funny angle. After a visit to the vets, we decided to have the leg removed because a) she would eventually develop arthritis in it anyway and b) because the vet felt that the location of the fracture left her at risk of breaking it again.

We continued to keep Cindy over the following two years (until now). We had begun to realise that she wasn’t getting the attention she deserved, with two children and another on the way. Recently, things were becoming chronic to the point where she wasn’t getting walked regularly anymore. We talked about it and decided that it was time to part company.

Initially, we spoke to some of the animal shelters. Well, the ones that don’t put a healthy animal down. That was important to us - we didn’t want to just get rid of her, we wanted her to have a good home.

We also put an advert up in a local shop. That was where we got a call from on Tuesday. We took Cindy out to the person, who seemed very nice and was totally taken with her. We let the lady take her immediately, in case she might change her mind, I suppose.

It’s nice to know that she’s going to be a house dog again, living with a family. She’s well trained and loves people, so I’m happy for her in that respect. But I still feel like we’ve failed her - it feels wrong to take on the responsibility of a dog, then opt out whenever it doesn’t suit - despite that fact we’ve had her for seven years. Feeling very low about this right now.

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2005 // Family Life