My Best Friends Have Hairy Legs Read online

  Copyright © 2008 Cierra Rantoul

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1-4392-1330-5

  ISBN-13: 9781439213308

  Kindle ISBN: 978-1-61550-349-0

  Visit www.booksurge.com to order additional copies.

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  PREFACE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  PREFACE

  “My Best Friends have Hairy Legs” is the story of how my dog, Trooper, and I overcame abuse and bad marriages and learned to trust again. Trooper was a Humane Shelter puppy—one of the phrases they used on the t-shirts they sold for fundraising is where the title of the book comes from. In the process of helping him learn to trust men again, I have reached a point where I feel ready to trust again myself. While my two-legged soul mate has not yet come into my life, I am confident that with the love of the four-legged soul mate in my life I will not be lonely and I will be ready when he does arrive. As much as this is a story about Trooper’s growth from a fearful puppy to a confident adult dog—it is also my story—my growth from being a psychologically abused wife into a confident woman who can look back at my past with laughter and with no regrets.

  Almost all the names of people have been changed. The facts are true as I remember them and as I occasionally wrote in my journal. The decision to change names was not so much to protect the “innocent” but because I wanted my story to be anyone’s story. I don’t believe my story is that unique because I have heard from many women who have been in abusive relationships or who suffer from low self-esteem. Our stories might differ, the details change, but the emotions and feelings are the same.

  I wanted to tell my story—our story—because we have survived to come out on the other side of it. I wanted to tell it to give hope to others who are struggling to find their way. There is a light within you. Find it. Be it. Share it.

  There aren’t any bras burnt at the end of this book—or dog collars—but the metaphor is the same. We are happy with who we are.

  CHAPTER 1

  Wearing Blinders

  I hadn’t planned on getting a second dog. Especially a dog that would weigh 70+ lbs. by the time he was full grown. I already had a full house with four cats and a pug that had frequent health problems. So when Marc, the man I had just started dating said that he wanted to get a puppy for his son, Ryan, who was with him for the summer, I really didn’t consider the possibility that I would be adding to my own clan. Little did I know…

  I met Marc in April when I was working a part-time second job at a major department store. I worked on the floor selling appliances and he worked in the stockroom. I had asked the night phone operator what he was like since I had seen them talking quite a bit and before I knew it, she was trying to play matchmaker.

  Marc was quiet and very shy. He was six years younger than me, and had been in the Air Force for nine years by then. His marriage had only recently ended. He and his ex-wife had married when she got pregnant. Eleven years later while he was on a solo military assignment in Korea, his wife had moved her boyfriend into the house. When he came home on a mid-tour visit she told him he wasn’t welcome to stay in the apartment that his paycheck was paying for. Marc had raised her daughter from a previous marriage since she was three and she was now 15. Their son was now 10. When I met him, he had been back in the states only since March and his divorce had just become final. He was working a second job just to be able to take care of his son while he had him for the summer.

  We started dating over the 4th of July weekend and right away there were “red flags” that I should have paid attention to. The first time I went to their apartment, a Sunday morning two weeks after we started dating, I excused myself to use the bathroom before we left for church. I noticed there were two dead palmetto bugs (a.k.a. the Florida state bug) in the bathtub. As I was leaving the bathroom, Marc asked if I would mind taking them out of the tub and putting them in the trash for him. I asked why he wouldn’t do it, and he said that neither of them liked bugs and wouldn’t touch them. I asked how long they had been there, and when he said over a week I asked where they showered.

  They didn’t. They just went swimming in the apartment complex pool every night. Marc did shower three mornings a week at the base gym after they did PT, but for the most part, they just “bathed” in the pool.

  Marc also seemed to always be short on cash, and I soon found myself picking up the tab whenever the three of us went out. I rationalized to myself that he had only recently been divorced and had to start over again with almost nothing. The only piece of furniture that his ex-wife had allowed him to take was the stained mattress that she and her boy-friend had shared while Marc was in Korea. Everything else in his one bedroom apartment was loaned or donated by his parents. Ryan slept on a pull-out sofa in the living room, and their dining room table & chairs were plastic lawn furniture.

  Ryan’s mother called him almost every day and as soon as she was done interrogating him about me, she would ask to speak to Marc. They would argue endlessly about money and what a bad influence he was setting by dating an “old bitch.”

  Excuse me? The woman who moves her boyfriend in to play house while her husband is on a solo assignment thinks that I’m a bad influence just because I’m older than her???? I wasn’t offended by the “bitch” reference. In fact, it was probably the nicest thing she ever called me. B.I.T.C.H. Beautiful. Intelligent. Totally in Control of Herself.

  In spite of all the red flags and signs that Marc had more baggage than Imelda Marcos taking her shoes on vacation, I continued to date him. He was a good father to Ryan, and was struggling to set a good example and start his life over. They went to church every week, and Marc was adamant about keeping our relationship celibate while Ryan was with him for the summer. A decision I also agreed was best considering how traumatized Ryan was already by his mother’s unconcealed affair. The “bad example” that his ex-wife accused him of setting by just dating me couldn’t have been farther from the truth.

  I know that Marc’s desire to get a puppy for Ryan before he went back to his mother’s at the end of the summer was an attempt to get Ryan interested in living with him full time. He hadn’t been able to afford to fight for joint custody of Ryan when the divorce was filed, getting only visitation during school breaks. While he was in Korea, Marc had missed him terribly, and when he got back all he could think about was when school let out and he could have him for the summer. Until that time, Marc drove eight hours one way just to spend two nights with his son every other weekend. They talked on the phone every day. I couldn’t imagine a more dedicated father.

  Marc and Ryan saw the puppy the morning he arrived at the animal shelter, and picked him up that afternoon. He was about six weeks old and they were told he was a lab and pit bull mix. He was adorable. I fell in love instantly, but tried hard to keep my distance since he wasn’t going to be my dog but Ryan’s.

  Marc had not thought about the restrictions of his apartment complex, and when he found out that the pet deposit was as much as a month’s rent, he asked if he could keep him at my house during the day until he was able to come up with the deposit. Of course I said yes. Any excuse to see that cute face as often as possible… and I was referring to the puppy—not Marc.

  Since we didn’t know the exact date, we decided his birthday was
June 2nd—about six weeks prior to when he was adopted. To decide on a name for him, we each made a list of names we liked and voted names off our lists until we arrived at the final three. The movie “Starship Trooper” had recently been showing on TV and Ryan and I were big fans. He loved to play games that involved role-playing… secret agents on spy missions to save the world. We would create elaborate plots, fake ID cards with our pictures on them, and imaginary super powers and weapons to battle enemies. I had put “Trooper” on my list of possible names because it sounded strong, and it was chosen in our last round of voting.

  Days became nights also when Marc realized that puppies require more attention than he was used to giving anyone other than himself. Oh, did I say that out loud? What I meant to say was that puppies require time and attention to get them housebroken and trained; more time and attention than Marc or Ryan were able (and willing) to give, especially to a puppy so young. I soon found out that Ryan had never had a pet for longer than three or four months… as soon as the cuteness wore off, so did his interest. Marc had also never had a pet for long other than a family dog when he was growing up, but as I learned more about Marc, I learned more about the family dog.

  Tulip, a cocker spaniel, had been his mother’s dog. Marc had only a few memories of the dog, and all of them were of her being restricted just to the kitchen area. She was not allowed in the rest of the house, and neither Marc nor his brother spent any real time with her. She was just “a dog” and not a member of the family. I got the impression that most of the time she was an annoyance—some “thing” that wanted love and attention that no one seemed to want to give. When she had died the decision had been made to not get another dog. They were just too much of a bother. How fortunate for all the dogs of the world!

  Lucky for Trooper I didn’t have the same philosophy when it came to companion animals, and since he was spending so much time at my house, I was raising him with lots of love and attention like I had raised all of my animal companions in the past. Marc and Ryan unfortunately were not as attentive, and whether they liked it or not, he was quickly becoming closely bonded to me. Even though he was supposed to be Ryan’s dog, they did not have much interaction with him except to feed or walk him when I reminded them. Neither of which happened often enough for Trooper to bond with them. On the weekends when Marc drove down to see Ryan, I would try to go at least every other month and we would take the dogs so that Trooper could spend time with Ryan.

  After Ryan went home for the summer in early August my relationship with Marc shifted into high gear. We spent almost every day—and night—together. We went to church on Sundays, ate lunch together every day since we both worked at the military base, and movies or out to eat once a week. By the middle of September he was already talking about getting married, and we made plans for him to move in with me in October and give up his apartment. While we had remained celibate when Ryan was there, once he was gone Marc and I were intimate three or more times a week.

  In late September we made plans one night to go look at rings after work. I got home from work early and when Marc arrived he was on his cell phone arguing with his ex-wife. Within minutes of walking in the door he slammed his phone down on the kitchen counter in anger and said that she had just hung up on him. She had called him at work and they had been arguing for over an hour—she wanted more child support money since he was going to give up his apartment and would have “extra” money. Before he was able to completely change out of his uniform, she had called back and they started arguing again. They argued the entire twenty minute drive to the mall, and as we sat in the parking lot, they continued arguing. After fifteen minutes of listening to him yell at her, I got out of the car and went into the mall. I went to the bathroom, wandered into three jewelry stores, tried on five rings, and then went back out to the car some thirty minutes later.

  He was still arguing with her.

  As I got back into the car to drive us home, he made a questioning face and motioned to the mall. I said I was no longer in the mood. They argued the entire twenty minute drive home, and when I pulled into the driveway and went into the house I left him in the car, still arguing.

  Thirty minutes later he came into the house. She had hung up on him again. When he came upstairs I could hear his cell phone ringing downstairs and when he turned to go answer it, I held his arm and asked him to please just leave it, but he was worried that if he didn’t answer it, she would think that she was right. Before I had a chance to argue the logic of that, the house phone rang.

  I answered it without even thinking that it might be her. She had never been given my home number since Ryan had his own cell phone and so she had access to him no matter where he was. When she introduced herself as Ryan’s mother and asked to speak to Marc I was stunned. I asked how she had gotten my number and she said she had called information. Without saying another word, I handed the phone to Marc and left the room to go downstairs.

  I listened to Marc yell at her for another twenty minutes without it sounding like he was ever really saying anything at all.

  The “Serenity” my home held for me was quickly being shattered by their arguing. My home had been my refuge after 8 my second marriage and I had spent a lot of time and effort to make it peaceful and welcoming. The yelling and hateful words that were now being spewed in my bedroom were filling the house with negative thoughts. It was my turn to lose some patience.

  I walked upstairs and went over to where the phone plugged into the wall and yanked the cord out. Marc turned to me angrily and yelled at me, asking why I did that. “Now she’s really going to think she’s right!!”

  I just looked at him and asked “Why did that even matter? Who cares what she thinks?” He knew what the truth was and she obviously wasn’t going to believe him so what did it really matter what she thought? They weren’t even listening to each other any more. All they were doing was making noise. As soon as they started yelling, they stopped listening. Each of them thinking only of what they were going to scream back when one of them stopped to breathe. They had been arguing now for over three hours and nothing had been resolved.

  I heard the phone downstairs ring. Neither of us moved for the door. I heard the answering machine pick up and I heard her leave a message angrily asking why Marc was going to allow me to talk to her “that way” and that he better pick up the phone and talk to her away from “that old bitch.” I heard the answering machine time out and hang up on her as she continued to berate him for how I had “treated” her.

  I would like to be able to say that was “the” red flag that caused me to end the relationship. I would like to be able to say that I kept the dog and kicked out the man. But I try to live an honest life, and there really wouldn’t be much point in a book if that had been the case. I wanted to believe that the man I saw—the good father, the passionate lover, the quiet, sensitive, funny man I had fallen in love with would be able to break free from her control once the “newness” of their divorce had worn off. She was used to being able to control and manipulate him by verbally, and sometimes physically, abusing him. Once she realized that he was out of her reach, and once he realized that I wasn’t like that, their relationship would be regulated to just civil conversations about Ryan. I had fallen in love with Marc, and with Ryan, and I didn’t want to let her “win” by ending our relationship. That was what she wanted, and I wasn’t going to be that easy to beat.

  In the end though, I did choose to end the relationship because of her. My decisions to ignore the red flags I had seen early in the relationship turned into a very expensive mistake, but ultimately, I think I still won.

  I got the dog.

  As with most of the mistakes we make in life, they are usually lessons we learn from. I’ve been asked if I would change anything in my life—if I had a “do-over”—would there be people or events that I would avoid like the plague. Would I have made different choices? Wiser decisions? That is always a tough one to answer. Would I like to have
avoided a painful phase in my life? All the hurt and tears that came with a bad relationship? Sure, who wouldn’t? But honestly, it is all those things that have made me who I am today, and I actually like myself today. If any of those things hadn’t happened… I’m not sure I would be this person today. I certainly wouldn’t trade all the pain and hurt from that relationship if it meant that I wouldn’t have Trooper.

  He is, by far, the best dog I have ever had. And sorry girl friends, but he is, by far, the best friend I have ever had.

  CHAPTER 2

  Trooper

  From the start, I knew that Trooper was an exceptional dog. I crate-trained him in the beginning, but he was house-broken by the time he was ten weeks old, and he actually never had a bathroom accident in the house. From the time he was housebroken and trusted to be out of the crate when I was not home, he would use the doggy door during the day that my pug, Tink, and my cats used. At night everyone was grounded at “curfew”—sunset. By the time he was twelve weeks old, he was learning to “speak” at the back door at night when he needed to go out. Soon he was too big to fit through the doggy door at all, and would speak to go out when I was home, or hold everything until I got home. He had a single bark for when he needed to go out, but a series of loud “Who are you? This is MY house!” barks when someone rang the doorbell or knocked at the storm door. If he needed to go out at night, he would come to the side of the bed and give his single bark in a softer “inside” voice; but if I was home and wasn’t in eyesight during the day, his single bark would be loud enough to hear upstairs even if I was in the shower.

  I know I’m making him sound like he was perfect, but he was still just a puppy that was learning how to behave. We had to have the occasional “discussion” about things that were not acceptable to chew on—like corners on the walls. I never yelled at him, never, ever physically disciplined him. Instead, I would get down to eye level with him—which quickly meant just sitting down next to him since he was growing so fast—and we would “discuss” what was unacceptable behavior. I never raised my voice, but would talk low and near his ear. I would point to or touch the offense and tell him that it was unacceptable, and that I knew he was smart and that he knew what acceptable behavior was. I would tell him how proud I was of all that he had learned so far, and that I knew he was going to learn this as well.