Working Wives & Bachelorettes: Mark Eaton's Story

I have mentioned my dogs in previous posts, but I would like to tell you about Mark Eaton, my mutt.

Mark is my pound puppy. My now husband and I had just started to date and he had to put his Boston Terrier down, so it was a tough time. I was working at Starbucks and going to school and the one day a guy came through the drive thru with the cutest puppy ever. Of course I asked him where this cute puppy came from and he told me the local shelter. So since I knew where to find really cute puppies, I got home and immediately told my now husband that we must go see! He wasn’t too thrilled at the idea at first because he missed Odie but he eventually took me.

So we went to the shelter that the guy at the drive thru said he got his puppy from, but they didn’t have any more left. There was another couple there that was looking for an older dog and overheard us talking and told us that at another shelter down the road, where they just came from, had a bunch of puppies. So off we went!

We got to the other shelter, and to this day, I 100% guarantee I could never get there again. It was in a really odd place and I remember it being in the middle of nowhere. But anyways, there is where we found Mark! He was in a cage that had another cage on top of it. It was just him and his brother, but his brother kept barking. Mark just sat there looking so cute and not barking, crying, anything. I felt so bad for him though because he had some poop on his head because his cage was not the cleanest, so I just had to take him home and give him a bath. (Side note – we made sure his brother got adopted!)

So we adopted Mark, which can I just tell you seems like more paperwork than adopting a child, and my now husband named him Mark Eaton after his favorite hockey player. Mark became an immediate addition to our still fairly new relationship, but he also helped us grow closer. I honestly believe that every couple should have to take care of a puppy before they have a child. You really get to see how each other is going to be with taking care of something else, especially something that poops, pees, cries, gets dirty, needs attention and wants to play when all you want to do is sleep.

Mark has since grown out of his playing days. Sure, he’s a bit overweight, loves to eat (veggies oddly enough) and he acts like an old dog but he is just 4 years old. For Christmas one year, my mother-in-law had a DNA test done on him because we truly did not know what breed he was. Some people would say lab, others – including the vet – said he probably had some pit bull in him, and we knew that he had some sort of pointer in him just because he would point at things in the yard. Turns out he is a crazy mix of Dalmatian (he only has like 15 spots on his chest), German Shepherd (which is mostly what his mom was, we saw her), German Shorthaired Pointer (yup) and Pekinese (ummm…that is a tiny dog. Mark is NOT tiny).

But I don’t care what Mark is. He is my best friend, my baby…my husband knows it too. If I start to think about Mark not being with me, it just gets bad. Like right now, tears. Uhg. I know he won’t live forever, but I am saving up now to clone him.

We all have had special pets, but Mark has beat out any others that I have had (or have). Don’t get me wrong, I love Axel (our other dog) but Mark is mine and he stole my heart the first time I saw the poop on his head!