Adopted from the Woodford Humane Society, before children, before the second cat and definitely AFTER the lizard (if you didn't know, Suzy, Leopard Gecko - she's dead too, though), Vaughn, as the shelter dubbed him, was a beagle blue-tick mix and at least, already, 9 months old. His "creative" description from the shelter was misleading at the best, but I'd consider it downright false advertising. He was going to be a total shit from the get go, regardless of positive or negative reinforcement.
His tag should have read:
"Adopt Vaughn today and be amazed at the everyday household items he will consume before your very eyes and crap them out, without a shred of intestinal damage. The first dog with NINE lives, a stomach of steel and a colon like the north-south pipeline. He will love you like he loves whatever he just ate, with total unabashed blindness and will dive right in to be your forever pet like he will do on a daily basis to any unprotected trash can or litter box and lap up every "kitty treat" and baby diaper, as well as your love. He will protect your house from all threatening intruders, especially if they look like 9 year old girls, and, even though you will try to remove this dog stereotype with much haste, he will continue to be prejudiced towards black people and also, anyone on a motorcycle. Take Vaughn home today, you won't need the puppy food, he'll eat, whatever you've got! Enjoy the ride. No take-sies - back-sies."
I mistakenly thought our current dog, Dingo, needed a day time pal for when Mr. Price and I were earning enough money during the day to spend on carpet cleaning and destroyed packages for light bulbs and toilet paper. I told Mr. Price that I had gone to the shelter and brought home this dog on a "trial", a total lie. He was bought and paid for and, the forgiving Mr. Price, pretended to buy my false statement. Rabit, was here to stay.
One day, we dealt with him nearly killing himself to get out of his cage, blood on the walls, lacerations, mud marks, clawed dry wall, and you wouldn't have known it to see his smiling, dumb, absent look, tongue hanging out of mouth-to the side, happy face. Tito (our cat) was FURIOUS, Dingo was unsure as to why he needed an impossibly incompetent playmate and Mr. Price always accused me of why MY dog, that I picked out, was SUCH TROUBLE, ALL THE TIME. Ahh Rabit. I smile when I think of this.
He lived through eating everything and lived through peeing on our stereo and destroying multiple carpets, bed linens and everything in between. He was shitting SHARDS of broken light bulbs when he ate an entire pack of light bulbs one day, and lived through it. We wouldn't have known that he ate an ENTIRE RACK of RIBS, bone and all, except for the barbeque breath and the mystery aluminum foil appearing in the Rabit yard piles.
He did weird shit, like, eyeball a fly with ninja-like stealth and strike when the moment was right, eating said fly. We never needed fly spray. He would freak out our guests when he'd lock eyes for a stare down, he'd always win and would still be staring, hours later. He'd turn too fast, in a doorway and whack his noggin on the arch, but think nothing of it and would always find the strangest way to sit, on top of Dingo and act like it was comfortable. How Rabit got to be the Alpha dog, we will never know, that award wasn't given to the sharpest tool in the shed, unless it came from a cornflakes box. He would clean Dingo's ears though, and they'd lie curled up together on the ottoman for hours. A forever puppy with an attitude like an absent minded old fart.
Rabit's large floppy auburn beagle ears flopped in the air like the flying nun, whenever he ran. He always jumped before he looked, and ran twenty feet ahead of his brain. He let our babies jump on him, pull his ears and drag him around by his tail (before we caught them), he put up with my bad attitude when work pissed me off and tolerated, with his dumb fun loving smile, the addition of the children that overshadowed both our dogs existence. He was a sweet, sweet dog, with always, nothing to lose.
Rabit was and will always be our fun loving family friend who will be missed. He always ran out when the door was open if we weren't quick enough to stop him and yesterday, he was hit by a car. Thanks, Rabit for being around and being our friend, have fun eating endless racks of ribs and all the light bulbs you want, without regret or repercussion.
