Voted #1 Dog??

Did you know that the American Kennel Club voted Labrador Retrievers as the #1 dog breed in 1999, 2004, 2008, and 2009? Did you also know that Adam and I are the proud parents of one of these “voted #1 dog breed” dogs and her named is Dixie (picture below)?

Dixie has been with us since February of 2008. She was born in December of 2007….which; by the way, please take note that the year of 2007 Labrador Retrievers were not voted the #1 dog breed in America…and I have very good idea that they were not nominated for that award in 2007 for the sole reason that this beautiful dog was born during that year. She has been the subject of MANY stories in the past 2 years…let me remind you of a few… she chewed apart all the wires in Adam’s grill one night and when I woke up Adam was on the back porch whipping her with a belt (yes, a belt…call PETA if you like…there are a few issues I would like to talk to those crazies about anyway), she was not allowed to come into our front yard when we lived in Lineville because she wouldn’t keep her teeth off of my sidewalk lights (we kept her in the back yard through the use of an electric fence…again call PETA if you feel the need), she has almost destroyed my white rocking chairs that Adam’s parents gave us the first Christmas we were married (again that was done with her teeth), she seemed to have issues with one of the steps at our house in Lineville and chewed the edge of it daily, and she has made lunch out of several pairs of shoes. Well, since moving to our new house last fall we have not had any major issues with Dixie this is partly because we had very little grass, no flowers, and no sidewalk lights….until now. Adam and I have spent several weeks laying sod, planting shrubbery and flowers, and putting up porch railings (there are previous posts on this back yard matter). These are the beautiful Gerber Daisy’s that I planted a few weeks ago and have managed to keep them alive (even after an incident with Dixie throwing them out of their plastic pot and chewing on the pot…they were salvaged)...

Until now….I came home yesterday to this…

And you see we have another little dog, Autie (Rat Terrier-picture below), and no, there is no way she caused this. As you see in the previous picture I had the Gerber Daisy’s planted in a pot and sitting high atop the rails on our back porch to avoid this exact scenario…Dixie, the #1 dog breed, is the only one that could come close to reaching the pot with her little furry paws. We have been policing our newly planted shrubbery for the last several days to be sure they weren’t lying lifeless in the yard.

Why, you ask, did we go and buy her a little sister (aka Autie) when we obviously had one dog we couldn’t handle? Well, Dixie had a friend when we lived in Lineville named Rose Bud (another Rat Terrier)….and they were the very best of friends!!!! Rose Bud would even sleep over with Dixie on occasion. Rose Bud was the friendliest dog you have ever met…she was even locked in our house accidently for a whole day. When Adam got home Rose Bud was sitting on the couch and welcomed him home. Well, it is believed that Rose Bud was taken in a drive by dog-napping when she was helping out with the neighbor’s yard sale one Saturday. This made Dixie very sad…and what kind of parent doesn’t want their kid to have a playmate????? Not us! Plus we thought that as long as she had a friend to talk to it might reduce the amount of chewing her mouth could do! WRONG! We didn’t buy her a friend…we bought her a partner in crime. After the Gerber Daisy episode they killed this sweet bird and drove this little bitty frog insane (yes, I let the dogs kill a bird…I know, you’re dialing PETA as we speak)!

I don’t understand where we went wrong! We give them everything they need in life…a warm place to sleep (under a heat lamp in the winter), food to eat, water to drink, and we even take them swimming at the lake every afternoon!! And this is the thanks we get!

This leads me to wonder…who in their right mind voted this breed of dog #1? Those of you with labs born in 2007 can thank Dixie for not being #1 that year!

I hope we do a better job raising Baby Reese!