Ranger - Sweet but Stupid

I admit it.  I have way too many pets for my small suburban home.  My three cats (Taz, Pyewacket, and Hodge) drive me insane with their constant shenanigans and crimes.  My old and cranky small dogs (Weenie and Pip) are also spoiled and demanding and run my life.  My Boxer/Pit mix (Chewie) is a Money Pit (ok, lame pun) and a law unto her sweet self.  Did I mention she eats cats?  Lots of opportunities to sharpen my organizational skills there. Since she can't play with the cats (!) and my old dogs are just hateful and mean to her, I began to worry about Chewie.  She is young and energetic and had no one to play with.  The wife is disinclined to play with her and I'm just not strong enough.  She tries so hard, bringing her squeak toys to each of us in turn.  No one is ever willing to play.  Regardless of species, we all just snarl at her.  She tries and tries and, finally, I couldn't take it anymore.  I snapped under the guilt of watching her optimistic advances always being met with rejection and disappointment.  My solution?  Get her a dog of her own.  Damn Virginia Woolf, anyway.  Enter Ranger, a big, beautiful, deeply stupid black lab.

Ranger eats.  He's good at it.  Ranger eats more than twice as much food as Chewie does, maybe four times as much.  When he's not draining my pet food budget, he's eating other things.  Things like my Coach purse.  My cell phone. ALL of my shoes.  The corner of my priceless, irreplaceable tool chest my grandfather received upon his retirement.  Brenda's earbud.  Books.  Baskets.  Garbage.  Recycling.  Bras and panties.  He really likes bras and panties, the pervert!  Socks. Anything he can get his big, slobbery mouth on.

Brenda is very, very upset with me (and rightly so) because I did not consult her before adopting Ranger. My only defense is that Mommy couldn't take her poor Chewie's sorrow and loneliness anymore. Thank goodness he and Chewie love each other and play and play.  Problem fixed.  It's a little hard on my house with those two behemoths crashing into everything, but in the end, her happiness is worth it.

I guess.