Outing Myself

For a long time or at least since I had my front left leg amputated, I have not been out in "public". This was for obvious reasons: I was too tired and weak, my mom broke her wrist and did not have the energy to walk me (lame excuse), and mom wanted to get the approval of my veterinarians before she took me on walks. And one last reason: Mom and Dad were a bit nervous about bringing a 140 pound, three-legged, Irish Wolfhound out in public. It was bad enough when I could account for all of my limbs.

Do you put a saddle on him? (HAHAHAHA.Ha.Ha...Ha. Nope! Never heard that one before!)

Who's walking who? (I am walking behind my mom, genius, what do you think?)

How much does he eat? (I have a cow and a lamb slaughtered out back each day. It gets expensive and messy.)

I would hate to pick up his poo! (Seriously? You are inquiring about my sh*t?)

I can only imagine the comments I will get now. Obviously, humans saw me when I was at the veterinarians' offices but that's different. Most of the critters there also had cancer or a serious health problem so they understood my situation. Usually (and hopefully), the humans there are compassionate towards critters and make positive comments.

Now, I will be walking in public. On my street. In the park. At the beach. I know people will want to ask what happened. It's only human. Those crazy humans are curious. Here are some responses I could give them, please pick your favorite:

You should see the other dog!

I did not have enough challenges in life as a huge sight impaired Irish Wolfhound so I thought I would lose a leg for sh*ts and giggles.

I fought the law and the law won.

Three legs is soooooo in this fall.

I do not get enough obnoxious comments anymore so I had to do something drastic.

Damn Bush and Damn the Iraq War.

That's as creative as I get on a Sunday afternoon. Seriously, I think people will probably be afraid to make any comments. I just hope no one challenges my mom for "doing that to me" or that she did it "for selfish reasons". Umm, hello! I'm walking! I'm cancer free (so far, knock on wood, etc, etc)! I'm alive! The other option: death. Four months to live with no treatment versus 18 months or more with treatment. Geez, that's a tough one. Four months, 18 months, four months eighteen months. Hold on, it's hard to do the balancing thing with only one front leg. Uh, sorry. Not ready to go yet.

So if you see me, congratulate me for doing so well and for kicking cancer's ass. And no, don't ask me about my sh*ts.