Hound Dog.

We're watching this dog.
It belongs to a family friend of ours. But the thing is... this family friend moved far away.
And is not coming back for the dog.
So... We have a couple of options here: We keep her, or we find her a nice home.
I don't like this dog very much. And my father is surely not her biggest fan, either.
He keeps thinking about having her "run away to a farm." You know. The sort of farm that send small children away in tears. But.. That wouldn't be civil.

We call her Penny.
The original owner named her Penelope, but, get real. That's WAY too long for a dog name, and it makes summoning her extremely complicated. So. We shortened it for the purpose of making our own lives easier.
Penny has not had a moment of discipline in her life. (Until now. My father is excellent at training dogs, and we're working on it, seeing as she may be around for a while..)
She sheds like nothing I've ever seen before. It's a massive pain in the bottom.
She bites our other dog, Holly, every time she comes around. So we keep Penny outside and put her away anytime Holly needs to use the facilities. Holly is seriously terrified of Penny. She has to scope out the backyard to make sure Penny isn't around before she'll set a foot out there. At any sign of Penny being near, Holly goes running.
Penny howls at anything and everything. She's some sort of hound dog. You know what that means? She has THE most obnoxious bark in the ENTIRE world.
We bring Penny inside at nights and put her in her kennel to sleep.
Penny snores.
Loudly.
I often come down stairs in the middle of nights to watch television or eat something, and I get freaked out every single time because I hear the snore of an old man near the back door.
Penny is not to be disturbed while she is sleeping.
Although, it's very hard to disturb her. She sleeps like a rock.
I have yet to see Penny with her tongue inside of her mouth. I'm serious.
She always seems to be panting. No one knows why. It's not like she does anything but laze away on our back porch all day.
And, not to mention, her breath is something of horror. You can smell it five feet away from her. Don't test it. Just believe me on this one.
The other day, I attempted to take Penny for a walk. And instead, as you can imagine, Penny ended up being the one to take me for a walk.
I will never put that dog on a leash and roam the streets with her again.
We were nearly killed several times by many cars. And passing another dog was an absolute nightmare.

I feel bad for Penny.
We don't really like her. But what's to like?
Exactly.

There's bound to be someone out there who would love this dog. But.. It just isn't my family.
We aren't hound dog people.

Which got me to thinking...
There are probably people who aren't Mallory people.
Which is perfectly fine. It just means that I am a hound dog to someone else.

We are all hound dogs in the eyes of someone.
It's silly that we all have a dislike for someone else, and there is someone else who has a dislike for each of us.
Why is that?

Why is it that no one likes everyone, and everyone dislikes someone?
Don't you dare tell me that everyone likes you, or you like everyone. Because we all know it isn't true.

So, essentially, we're just a big chain of hound dogs.
We're all sort of annoying somewhere.
But that's life.

So why can't we all just find peace within ourselves and like everyone? I know it's not an easy thing to do, but think about it. With a little patience and effort, we could live in harmony. Right?

So I suppose that means that, with a little patience, I will be able to find rhythm in Penny's snoring and delight in her howling.
Because she deserves that chance.

You can dislike someone else, as long as you realize that there is someone else who dislikes you.

We're all just a bunch of hound dogs.
We're all equal.
So we all deserve that chance to be liked.
No matter how horrible our breath may be.




By: Mallory