Demun Dog

I'm participating in the Blogging from A-Z Challenge again this year. Today's post is brought to you by the letter D.

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Five years ago we were the mostly happy owners of a very odd little Jack Russell named Scooby.  I say mostly happy b/c that dog had some quirks that were difficult to live with, mostly when it came to her aggressive behavior toward any child that was not ours.  She was also aggressive toward other animals, so we had decided we wouldn't be adding any new fur babies to our family.

Then along came Demun Jones Sams.

When Justin's sister's dogs got pregnant, she made a few little statements here and there about giving us one of the pups.  I couldn't be more against the idea of a puppy b/c I don't enjoy training them and I knew Scooby would be an asshole to it.  I had the rest of the fam convinced it was a bad idea and that was the end of it...or so I thought.

One evening we went out to Justin's sister's house for a reason I don't recall now, and as we were standing outside chatting, my nephew let the puppies loose so we could meet them.  They were all pure bred chocolate labs, the offspring of 2 labs named Sandy and Hunter.  These little pups were absolutely adorable, but me being the stick in the mud that I am, I reminded my husband over and over that we had agreed that we wouldn't be charmed by any cute little puppies.  "Remember, Scooby is a jerk", "remember, puppies chew up everything", "remember little doggy doo piles all over the house".  I thought I was making a good case for myself, but I was no match for Demun. 

As we were standing there with little brown pups wandering around but paying little attention to us big humans, a single boy pup walked up to Justin and sort of started rubbing on him and playing around his feet.  Justin picked him up and that was all it took.  There was something special about this little guy and Justin saw it right away.  Begrudgingly, so did I.  He was still too young to be taken away from his Mom, but we told Justin's sister that if the offer of a free pup still stood, we'd take that little guy off her hands when he was old enough.  She agreed, and that was that.

In the time between meeting him and bringing him home, we brainstormed names for this new little member of our family.  I don't recall what Justin's name was, but I wanted to name him Homer.  He just had this big, dopey face and I kept picturing Homer Simpson in his expressions.  But as anyone with kids knows, when the kiddo picks a name, your suggestions become irrelevant.  Having recently met the members of the band Rehab, Trinity wanted to name the new puppy after her favorite member of the band, Demun Jones.  There was no talking her out of it or convincing her to consider any other names.  He was to be Demun Jones Sams and that was all there was to it.

As expected, there were the dreaded puppy behaviors, but he was surprisingly easy to train.  The chewing and house-breaking phases came and went with only a few casualties.  (The cushions of my porch swing being the biggest loss.  I'm still butt-hurt about that.)  Scooby was established her dominance over Demun right away and although we re-homed her over 2 years ago, he still has some funky quirks as a result of his time with Scooby.  

Five years later, Demun has proven to be a loyal and sweet dog.  He still gets over-excited when visitors arrive, but he has started mellowing out quicker than he did when he was younger.  He was diagnosed with epilepsy when he was just a couple years old, but he doesn't seem to have any ill effects from it; just random seizures from time to time.  When Presley came along, he adapted very quickly and has become as good a friend to her as he is to Trinity, though he clearly favors his older "sister" over the littler one.  He sleeps in Trinity's room every night, and when she is away from home overnight, he seems disoriented and sad.  

It's funny how you can be so dead set against something, then fate intervenes and you find yourself unable to remember why you were against it in the first place.  Our family just wouldn't be the same without our constant companion, Demun Jones Sams.  He's the best dog any of us have ever had and I think I can speak for the whole family when I say I'm glad he picked us.