I thought that he was gone.

It has been a roller coaster weekend for me emotionally. You see, I have a great family and I love everyone that resides in our home dearly...except one. The story of my relationship with this particular family member is very...complicated. It started out great. I can still remember my wife and I bringing him home in the car. He was so tiny, so innocent, so...cute. It was probably against the law but my wife even held him in her arms all of the way home. As he grew, I would take him everywhere with me. People always stopped and talked to us while we were out and ALWAYS commented on how cute he was. We went on like that for several years but soon after things started to to go terribly wrong. I don't know if it was him or me but things started to change. His behavior became inexcusable. He stopped listening to me, he would be out playing and wouldn't come in for dinner, and his personal hygene problems became an issue. So I decided that drastic measures needed to be taken. I needed to find someone to adopt him before I lost it, before I became violent. We had several different people express interest in him from time to time but no takers. This past weekend, however, I had the perfect candidate who was very interested. I thought I had a deal. I would offer this person $100.00 to take this "problem child" off of my hands. It may seem wrong to you but I felt so excited to get rid of this "thorn" in the side of my family. Things were going well with the negotiations and the candidate left me with a feeling that this deal would be done. I was running around like a crazy man. I bought some toys for his car ride to his new home, gave him a bath, and even brushed his teeth. I gathered his belongings in a bag and had him ready to go and then I waited....and waited....and waited. That is when the roller coaster headed down hill. I soon began to realize that my candidate was not coming back. That I would be forever stuck with this...problem. So after the up's and down's of this weekend, I am left with thoughts of what could have been and I'm still left with this... problem "child". Of course I am talking about my pain in the butt dog, Toby. Although he now smells much better, I thought that he was gone.