I wanted to blog about how weird cat people can be. No offense, cat people. Some of my closest friends prefer cats, but the percentage of weirdos in the cat lover’s circle is significantly higher than in the dog lover’s circle.  Just search etsy for “cat”. It comes up with the strangest things.

So, I’m “not allowed” to blog about crazy cat people (cough…Josh…cough). You know the Tinii, we keep things classy (news to me).

Instead of showing you all the glorious things cat people come up with, I’m going to tell you about how in the world we ended up with a dog.

Josh doesn’t hate dogs, but he definitely doesn’t love them (Don’t worry, he’s not a weirdo cat lover).

I had been sort of wanting a dog for some time, but didn’t dare bring it up. I had already convinced Josh I needed a rabbit (that’s a whole other story that involves Jen Smith, bad ideas, and lots of crazy people) and I knew that he would shut down the dog idea quickly (he’s sounding like a control freak in this post between not wanting me to have a dog and not wanting me to blog about cat stuff).

So like Mary, I pondered it in my heart.

We were at Centennial Park and someone there had a wolfhound. My heart MELTED. I adore big dogs! To my shock and surprise Josh just said, “We can get a dog if it’s one of those.”

Done and done.

I searched and searched for a wolfhound or a mix. Unfortunately, wolfhounds are as costly as they are big. Coming from a family whose pets were always rescuses, strays, or free I was not about to pay $2000 for a dog that lives six years and suffers from a bunch of health issues.

So I then convinced Josh that as long as it was a BIG dog we were looking at, it would still be cool. Convinced is an exaggeration. I sort of just convinced myself I had convinced him.  So we switched the search a little. We is an exaggeration too. Josh was losing interest. I had to act fast.

Here were my requirements: Big, Calm demeanor, intelligent, likes water (I mean he’s going to live on a boat, right).

Here’s what we ended up with: Captain Johann Georg Tinius.

His “profile” said “Newfoundland, extra large (up to 120 pounds), 4 months old.”

We went to get him and the rescue lady said he was 34 pounds. That’s pretty big for 16 weeks, we thought. He was all fluffy and jowly and precious. The girl who had him said he was smart. SOLD. “We’ll take him.” I proudly answered.

“Oh, maybe he’s older than we thought. Maybe he’s six months.”

“Oh, he might not be a Newfoundland. He might be a flat coated retriever”

Within 30 seconds of saying we’d take him, his potential to be Nana from Peter Pan diminished greatly. In fact, he went from the possibility of being a calm and gently giant to being Peter Pan himself. No, seriously, Flat Coated Retrievers are described as Peter Pan dogs because they NEVER GROW UP.

But what could we do? We picked him up from the vet a few days later, still holding out hope they were wrong and that he was indeed going to be a massive beast of a dog. We named him after Josh’s serial killing ancestor to instill fear in the hearts of those who would meet him. We looked for spiked collars and listened for his first intimidated bark.

Captain is not intimidating. He is annoyingly friendly. He’s about 60 pounds soaking wet. He’s rarely soaking wet though because he doesn’t like swimming. He knocks over little children and sits on other dogs. He’s an a**hole.

But I love him. We’re not sure WHAT kind of dog he is, and Josh has only experienced a mild affection toward him, like, three times since we’ve had him. He LOVES Josh though. Which means he follows him around incessantly, won’t get out of his face, and is always trying to lick his feet.

But that’s how we ended up with Captain – on the worst day of Josh’s life.

Aren’t you glad I didn’t blog about how cat people can sometimes do really weird things?