Join Bethany Mortellaro and Cher Vaden as they introduce Little Rocco, a French Bulldog with a lazy streak and a knack for barking at people. In this engaging episode, they discuss Rocco’s resemblance to a Harry Potter movie dog and share their love for dogs, exploring how owning one can change the dynamic of a home. The conversation weaves through encounters with French Bulldog puppies, off-topic discussions about movies and working out, and their shared appreciation for true crime podcasts. They reflect on the benefits of having dogs, recount personal stories of resilience and attachment, and touch on the correlation between dogs and humans. From heartwarming tales to unexpected medical emergencies and the eternal debate of dogs versus cats, Bethany and Cher offer an entertaining glimpse into their own lives and invite listeners to share their animal stories. Concluding with laughter and recommendations, this episode celebrates the unique bond between humans and their furry companions.
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If You Don’t Love Dogs
We have a special guest in this episode.
We do have a special guest. This is his third day being part of our family. This is little Rocco. He is still sleepy. He’s the laziest dog. He’s a little Frenchie bulldog.
He’s not lazy.
He is the laziest dog.
I don’t know if I agree with that assessment and I will tell you why. It’s because, for a little man, he has a lot of guard dogs in him. For me to walk in and he had no problem barking at me and coming right at me and telling me what was up. I don’t think that’s lazy.
However, now that he is familiar with you, he’s going to sleep for the next few hours.
What you are saying is he’s a male? He’s a male. He’s doing what men do. That’s what he’s doing. “I barked. I scared her. I did my job and then I’m going to sit back and lay down. I will take a nap with my head right in your lap. That’s what I’m going to do.” You got another man at the house.
He is right where I like it.
He is right in your crotch.
What are we talking about in this episode, Cher?
I think we are going to talk about puppies. Why don’t we talk about puppies? I think that the dog topic is a multi-episode.
Who doesn’t love dogs?
If they don’t love dogs, usually there’s a problem.
There is a problem because dogs are better.
Maybe not necessarily that, but dogs have that sixth sense that we mute in people. Children have it too. Dogs tell you about people. Maybe he didn’t like the way I smelled. He probably smelled my dogs on me. That’s why he barked at me.
Dogs have that sixth sense that we mute and that children have too. Click To Tweet
It could be. He could have smelled your dogs, our little Rocco. He’s so sweet. He’s nineteen weeks old. He’s a blue little Frenchie. He’s such a meatball. He’s 22 pounds. I don’t want him to grow much bigger. When I am holding this dog, I’m like, “I need a break.” He’s dense in one little tiny package.
He’s like, “Don’t insult my intelligence, Mommy.”
One of his ears has not popped up yet which is an interesting fact about calcium. Everybody thinks of Frenchies and their ears are popping straight up but it’s all related according to Google to calcium. I like his ears being floppy. I like the floppy ears. I don’t mind if they don’t pop up.
Duke is a 120-pound 2-year-old German Shepherd. I have three German Shepherds and Shepherds are known for their ears popping up but they don’t pop up until they are a little bit older. Maybe that’s when they get their calcium to strengthen the cartilage in their ears to hold their ears.
When I was talking to the breeder she was saying they will break down the cartilage to have them stick up. It’s a whole process to get their ears to stick up. This says French Bulldog’s ears will perk up or stay up straight between 5 and 15 weeks of being born and sometimes not both or at the same time. There was something in regard to calcium. We got to pull that up.
He looks like Yoda. Rocco, just give in. Just go to sleep. Seriously, whom he reminds me of? I am a Harry Potter fan. I’m not one of those crazy Harry Potter fans who like everything is Harry Potter and it’s real. No, I’m not that person but the dog in Harry Potter reminds me of a shrunk-down version of that Mastiff in the movie.
All I remember are tidbits of the very first one, which was years ago when I watched that movie and I never saw any of the sequels after.
I’m going to show you the dog from Harry Potter. I forgot his name.
I said to the kids last time, “Why don’t we watch Harry Potter,” just because I can’t remember it. Enzo my eight year old was like, “No, it scares me.” I was like, “I’m not going to open up.”
Your kids are a little bit younger than mine. Fang was his name.
He does not look like that.
His coloring is the same. I didn’t say he looks like him. He looks as if that dog was a baby, that’s Rocco.
The size of these dogs’ lips is 10 feet long.
It’s because he’s an old dog. I’m saying if he was a baby dog when this guy was a baby, I’m telling you, it’s the same color. I could be in there for hours. That’s hilarious to me. Again, when his ears go out to the side, he looks like Master Yoda.
They are so oversized for his little head.
I love it. “All the better to hear you with my dear.” Don’t you think that the dog changes the dynamic of your home?
Dogs can change the dynamic of your home. Click To Tweet
One hundred percent and I’m so happy. I have been wanting to get a dog for a little bit of time.
You are very much a dog person.
We both are. Both my husband and I are very much dog people.
It’s the pollen. I woke up like that. You sound like you are that but you are not.
I do and I have my concoctions. I have water, Celsius, and coffee all behind me, but we all had dogs when we first met. When we lost them, my husband says, “There are such little tragedies.” I think he didn’t want to open that door to having another again one day because we are going to outlive our dogs. However, we ran into this couple. We are here in the Tampa Bay Area. We went to the International Plaza to go get lunch before seeing the awesome Mario movie. I love the movie. We bought it. I have been working out at the gym to Bonnie Tyler’s I Need a Hero. That’s been my jam at the gym.
It was in Shrek. Every time I hear that song, I think of Shrek.
It gets me so pumped to start something out. I do want an obstacle course and listen to that song but that’s a fantasy of mine.
That’d be fun. American Ninja Warrior, I could see you doing it.
With Bonnie Tyler in the background.
Let’s do it. It’s international.
We are walking up to where they have their area with all the restaurants like Cafe Street or whatever it’s called.
It’s Bay Street.
I see this woman holding a Frenchie puppy. Her son is with her and her husband. They have a wagon full of Frenchies.
She brought the brood.
They socialize their dogs all the time but she was dropping off one of the puppies to somebody who had purchased one. He was there with his brothers and sisters. My whole family of five goes up to this family and we are gushing over all these puppies. My husband who is so against having dogs is asking twenty questions. We are talking to these people for a good twenty minutes.
This is the same husband that you were horrified to admit the guinea pig situation. The same guy who didn’t want the guinea pig in the house is down for the dog.
He’s asking all these questions but when you have the Mario movie scheduled at 5:00 that day, it’s late afternoon lunch. We are going with friends. We walk away and we are honestly having a conversation about whether should we get a dog or not. We decide against it because we are busy. We got plans. What am I going to do with this dog? We have a movie. The logistics of the day is not going to work out. From that point on, I have not been able to stop talking about wanting to get a dog.
What about your husband? Was he still talking?
He loves the Blue French. He loves their color. He kept saying how cute these dogs were. He loves the blues. We would talk about it. The kids and I are now watching reels and TikTok videos of Frenchies. We watch little Nurf. He’s super popular. He talks.
Does someone talk to him?
They will talk to the dog and the dog talks back. It’s so funny. He’s super popular on TikTok and has one million followers. The kids and I all the time are watching these videos on dogs. On Monday evening, Luca got done building the massive Lego from Mario. Who’s the bad guy?
Bowser. Is it the castle?
Luca built this Bowser Lego, which is 18-plus in age and over 2,000 pieces. He built it in three days.
Is this the castle and Bowser spins in it?
No. This is a massive Lego Bowser that spits that power out of its mouth. It’s mechanical. It’s cool. It stands on its throne with little fire pits on either side. You can pick him up. He moves around. He’s cool. This is my six-year-old who built this in a matter of days. He was so proud to show his dad. I call up my husband on Monday evening after work and I’m like, “When are you going to be home? Luca wants to show you the Lego. He’s so proud of it.” He is like, “I’m on my way home now.” He gets home and he’s like, “I got to talk to you about something.” When you hear that, the hair on the back of your neck sticks up. You are like, “What happened with the kids? What did I do wrong? What’s going on?”
He’s like, “I was going to surprise you and go to the dog store tonight and get a crate and all this other stuff for a dog.” The breeder that we met at the mall still has a little boy and a little girl left. When we met these breeders, I will never forget her telling me that the girls in the litter were nuts up. They were super hyper and they had one little boy that was super lazy. Automatically when he told me that he reached out to the breeder, all I could think of was the lazy one. I have been demanding that I want a female dog in the house to balance the bar. I have three boys and my husband.
Also, Cupcake.
Cupcake is a boy.
The guinea pig is a boy.
Once he told me this, I was hell-bent and determined, “Absolutely not. We are not getting that little girl.” I remember how rambunctious she was. I remember the little lazy dog and the litter and she still had the lazy one. I was like, “That’s it. If we are going to get one, we are getting the lazy boy as he’s sleeping.” I meet the woman the next day and she brings the two dogs. She lives in a different town. She comes over to Tampa. She brings the dog. She brings everything.
At this point, I said, “I just want to see the dogs again,” because her husband flies out of the Tampa Airport. She will be back in town on Friday. I know once I see these dogs, I’m going to take them home. I’m done. I’m not going to wait three more days to take the dog home. Long story short, we surprised all of our children with little Rocco. I love this dog so much.
He loves you. You have another baby.
I think he claimed me. They always say a dog will claim one person and I feel so bad because Luca, he’s like, “Why doesn’t he follow me? He always follows you.” I said, “Do you know what, Luca? Dogs know who feeds them and take them out.” That has been the majority of my job. I said, “Why don’t you start taking on that responsibility?”
Luca wants all that love so badly.
He does. Even when we first brought Rocco home, Luca is my animal lover. He sat Cupcake down.
Say first what they thought when you brought him in.
The kids ran outside and I’m holding Rocco and Luca is like, “You brought home a baby,” a baby person.
He thought it was a baby
It’s because I had Rocco wrapped up in a blanket, he thought I was bringing a baby home because he keeps asking for a baby sister, which is not happening because that factory is shut down. There are no more babies coming into our house. He thought it was a baby but then once he saw its face, which is full of wrinkles, he was over the moon. When he sits down Cupcake, his guinea pig, it melted my heart. Michelangelo and I both looked at each other and gave that sweet and soft smile of how sweet it was.
He sat down Cupcake, the guinea pig and he said, “I wanted you to know that you are always going to be my little baby and I’m going to be your daddy. Rocco doesn’t take your place. I love you so much. We are all going to be best friends.” It was such an innocent child heartwarming moment and then twenty minutes later, a screaming bout. Savor those first.
That’s a typical parent. “I love you. You are so sweet. What the hell are you doing?”
The name choices were either because we have to stick with the Italian names. My husband is Michelangelo and then we have Enzo, Luca, and Gio, but there has to be a flow. It has to end with the O. It was either going to be Vito, Bruno, or Rocco.
Luca doesn’t end in an O.
He’s an A. It still flows though. I don’t know why, I kept calling him Rocco.
He’s solid like a rock. That’s why. That’s like his theme song, Solid as Rock.
We have Little Rocco and I did order him. I cannot wait to get this in. I ordered both Rocco and Cupcake. I ordered him one too. They are going to have gold chain collars with little Italian horns.
I can’t even compartmentalize that. Have you bought those for your children?
For Enzo’s eighth birthday, I took him to the jewelry store. It was a moment between me and him. I let him pick out a gold chain and whatever gold cross he wanted. That was not a gangster.
Even though your dog and your guinea pig going to look like gangsters.
They are going to look like gangsters. I also bought him a little gold Italian horn. He has this crucifix and a little Italian gold horn. When Luca, for his birthday, I will take him on a special trip.
To clarify. It’s not gangster. It’s mafia. When we are talking Italian, they are not gangsters. They are going to look mafia. They have got Don Vito.
I wanted it this way. I have a completely blacked-out extended Escalade and all the badging is black. The windows, I love them. Tint World here in Tampa and Clearwater, you guys have got to go to them. Todd and Michelle Sims are amazing. I told Todd, I said, “The tint is not dark enough. I need it blacked out.” He’s like, “That’s illegal.” I’m like, “I don’t care.” She’s like, “You are not going to be able to see at night.” I’m like, “It’s cool.”
You don’t drive at night.
I do, especially in baseball season. It gets dark and I have a clock here.
That’s true. It’s so stupid that we changed the time.
There are so many cameras on that thing. It’s crazy.
Now, you have got a dog that will be probably with you everywhere go.
He is. I have my service dog certification coming. He is coming everywhere with me. Little Rocco with his little Italian horn.
I can’t with that. You need to have a photo shoot.
Can you imagine the guinea pig with the little Italian horn?
Yes, because in that movie, they are wearing their gangster chains where they are like the rappers or something. There are multiple movies and guinea pigs always were the gangsters.
Even in the movie Pets, the guinea pig was scaling the AC.
Gangster guinea pig. It’s a thing. It’s a search. Not what I was expecting.
There’s a picture of a guinea pig with a gold chain and a medallion on it and a New York Yankees ball cap.
I can’t. That’s a whole other thing. People dress up as guinea pigs and this is one says, “Gangster.”
I follow on Instagram a chinchilla and it does the cutest things. It’s so trained.
Have you ever pet a chinchilla?
I have not.
I can appreciate this sounds terrible and I’m not condoning this behavior, but you can appreciate why someone would make a coat out of it.
It’s because they are so soft.
There’s nothing softer.
It took me forever to not be squeamish around the guinea pig who’s puffy because they jump. I thought of you at 6:30 in the morning. Every morning when I am getting ready, I listen to My Favorite Murder Podcast. I love these two girls. Their newest episode, the very last one that they posted is on Baby Jessica.
That’s not a murder mystery. That was an accident. She fell down the well.
They do murders. They do podcasts on survival stories.
That would be a survival story.
My Favorite Murder is their merch. They do unsolved mysteries. They do all kinds. They are all over the place but they are hilarious. I’m going to plug them in because I love them so much. I listen to them so much that I have now become so paranoid.
Murder podcasts can make you extraordinarily paranoid and cognitively aware of potential dangers you would never have even fathomed otherwise. Click To Tweet
That’s me. We are going squirrelly on that. We need to stick to our dogs.
We are so squirrelly. We move that around related to the dog.
Let’s talk about that. I too, I’m going to tie it in. You are going to be very proud of me because I’m all kinds of squirrely all the time. I listen to Casefile on Spotify. First, I love listening to an Australian tell a story. The guy is great. I’m onto an episode now where he’s reading parts of it and making his voice change. It’s funny, but whatever. It’s not a funny podcast. It’s a serious podcast. It’s entertaining the way he’s changed his voice.
I too have become extraordinary. Much so that when my little girl was over at my grandparents’ house and she told me after we had picked her up that she and my grandmother had gone for a walk around the block. They live in South Tampa and their road tends to be busy. I was horrified. I was thinking my 90-year-old grandmother could not fight someone off that decided to drive up and grab my child. I don’t feel safe. Again, I say to you, it’s because of listening to these podcasts.
It gets you to become a lot more observant around your surroundings because everybody is on their phones. We need to put them down and pay attention to what is going on around us and the people who are around us. It just leaves.
It makes you cognitively aware of potential dangers that otherwise, you would never have even fathomed because I’m not a killer so I don’t think like that or a kidnapper. I don’t think like that. Where I go with this, is now I’m on the Eastside rapist. That’s the episode I’m on right now. How this guy would break in and they’d have people sleeping and he’d come in. I would dare someone to break into my house. Can you imagine? You of all people can’t imagine. You should not have opened that doorway.
We are going to sidebar that because we are going to have to tell the story. However, perfectly good wine was ruined.
We will tell that story because it’s horrific but it is what it is.
I am sorry for that noise in the background. That is the dog snoring.
Don’t be sorry. He’s snoring. Regarding the fact about dogs, I sleep very soundly in my home at night. I have 300 pounds of German Shepherd which is a lot of teeth with a pretty significant bite capacity and you will know why later. My point is that they serve so many purposes in our lives. As you say, make him a service dog. Think of what that’s going to do for your children. A dog is going to lower your anxiety. They make you feel so much fun.
Animals are unconditional love. They are so excited to see you. Yes, they require much.
Even when they are grown-up dogs, it’s like having a baby.
We were going about how these podcasts make us super nutty because we are listening to them. I told my husband. I’m like, “I’m not going walk him at night.” He’s like, “Why?” I said, “I’m listening to way too many things on this podcast about being nighttime. Also, on top of it, on Netflix, I’m watching The Watcher.”
I haven’t done it yet.
It is so freaking good but between The Watcher and the Murder Podcast, when I was talking to my therapist because I see a therapist weekly to talk about anything in life. I love this guy. He’s now turned into a friend. We bullshit half the time during the calls and it’s not a friend and it’s not a family member. It’s not a client.
He is non-biased.
I am a huge supporter of that but with that being said, he’s like, “We should touch upon that in our next session.” It’s like, “Why?” The bottom line is I’m watching so many things that are making me paranoid and I need to maybe take a breather with some comedy shows or something.
I can’t imagine that it would be an area of concern but let me say, and I’m not diminishing your dog walking at night but I would not be scared to walk. The problem is I can’t walk my dog because my dog is the size of me.
Your dogs are a different story. There’s a difference between a little 20-pound Frenchie and something that looks like it would chew your freaking head with a little force. I would not be scared either. The most thing I would be scared of is if that dog wanted to take off, I wouldn’t be able to restrain it.
You are going to be like Calvin and Hobbes like you are getting dragged.
They are dragging me behind.
As vicious as my dogs appear, they have their person. If my husband is not in the home, they know what the hierarchy is, but they also know who their person is. My little girl is like Luca. She would rather be around animals than people any day. When you see this 60-pound nine-year-old girl bopping around with a 120-pound solid black Shepherd right on her 6, it’s funny. Nobody is going to try to get her.
No crazy man in an ice cream truck is going to go near her.
The worst part about it is of my dog, I have got one that’s 120 pounds and one that’s 110 pounds. Those are both boys and they are a little over two years old. I have my female who’s only 75 pounds and she’s 5.5 years old. She’s the one that you got to look out for. We will leave that at that before Bethany kicks me out of the salon and this show is over. Needless to say, dogs are very special and they are part of your family.
People that don’t have kids, they are their children. “This is going to be my kid.”
I have a girlfriend of mine, one of my dearest friends. She is unable to have children. She knew from a very early age that she wouldn’t have children and she’s so good with kids. She went to school to be an elementary school teacher. When she found out that, unfortunately, it wasn’t in regard for her, it was very difficult.
It still bothers her sometimes. She’s always been a dog lover but it’s elevated because they are her children. She lost probably the love of her life. Her little Barley Cakes died. Unfortunately, she had cancer and it was excruciating. This is taking it up a level, but there should be a grievance time off from work for when people lose their dogs. It’s huge.
There should be grieving time off from work for when people lose their dog. Click To Tweet
They are with you. They sleep with you. They eat with you. Even when you have the dangling of the chains of their collars and then they are gone and the silence in your home, it’s hard. It’s deafening.
You know what it’s like to lose an animal. We lost Charlie. As though COVID wasn’t bad enough, our Charlie was a 120-pound Shepherd. We got him from a backyard breeder. The lady was super nice and I don’t think she wanted to breed her dogs, but her husband did. Charlie was gigantic. We brought him home at five weeks, which is way too early. He was the runt of the litter, and he did not end up being a runt because he was gigantic but we lost him. He had degenerative myopathy, which is where the spine generates from the back forward. You have this giant dog that couldn’t even get up off the floor. We’d have to lift him and he’s the same size as me. We now have 127 pounds.
It’s all that dead weight.
We made the very difficult decision to put him down. I will tell you that this was in 2020 that this happens. This has been a few years now. My little boy Henry was ten years old and he still, to this day, cries if he talks about Charlie or if he sees a picture of Charlie. To me, I didn’t understand why it was impacting my son so much. I know why it impacted me because I brought that baby home. That was my baby. He was my dog but Henry, he didn’t know life without him. I brought my baby home to this dog. We do miss him. I will start crying thinking about it, but it’s hard.
I kept saying this to my husband, “I want our children to grow up with a dog.”
It teaches them so much about pure love and responsibility.
We are on the same page with all this stuff.
I wish you could see the way this dog is nestled up next to Bet’s leg.
He’s so lazy.
I love it.
That’s another thing. We have voices for that.
It’s weird. No wonder he charged. He is like, “Bitch, what is wrong with you. Do you have something in your throat? Let me get it out for you.”
If that was my voice, I would not be talking that way. First of all, don’t insult me.
I know. Like, “Don’t speak for me.”
“He is a little meatball. He wouldn’t talk like this.”
He probably cannot be like, “I know why the bitch is looking at me and talking to me like this.” Just wait till he gets his chain. He is going, “I don’t understand which problem is with me.” He sounds more like a Russian that way. “My name is Don Vito.”
You make him sound like a mafia gangster in the ‘60s.
What’s his name? Marlon Brando. He’s going to sound like, “I wanted to tell you that Don Vito is going to.” He looked at me when I did that.
I would hope he would sound more like Joe Pesci, seriously. He would have the voice of Joe Pesci.
I can’t do Joe Pesci’s voice.
I’m not going to try.
I’m going to try that. I’m going to be practicing at home doing Joe Pesci’s voice. Maybe we will get a voicemail. Joe Pesci, can I give you my phone number and you leave me a voicemail so I can play it on our show, please?
Many weeks back when I was at Cher’s house, her husband asked me if I would like to rebuild my confidence coming back around your dogs again because I’m terrified of them. I said, “No. I’m not in that place.” I will be but I wasn’t in that place then.
It’s not my dogs. It’s the one.
It’s the one but you don’t even realize when things happen.
The PTSD.
Yes, and after this particular event happened with her dog.
You might as well talk about it.
I will have you tell the story. I was somewhere with a big dog and it started barking at me. I went into this instant panic and it triggered me back to your house. I was like, “I have never had this anxiety around dogs no matter how big or small.”
Here’s the story, friends. I have my dogs. I told you about my dogs. I told you the story about Charlie and losing Charlie. I will tell you that since it was during COVID, our veterinarian, who’s also a friend of mine, and one of her techs showed up at our house. The kids were not at home. We made sure that they were far from home at a family member’s home. It was my husband, the doctor, the tech, and Charlie. Lexie was only a couple of years old, but the only dog she knew was Charlie because we got her at ten weeks.
We put her outside while they were there because we knew that she was going to have anxiety like, “Why are these people coming up to Charlie?” I think that she could see through the door. They gave him the medicine to make him calm and whatever. They put him to sleep right there. It was horrible. I freaked out and when I say I freaked out, I wasn’t prepared.
He went to sleep and I wanted him to wake up. I don’t want to talk anymore about it because I will cry. It’s horrific. I will tell you that the reason why I feel that this is an important sector of what happened is because as much as it’s impacting me, imagine if all you knew was this other dog. That’s how Lexie is. All she knew was Charlie. That was her friend. That was her number one.
I find it so incredible and heartening that when animals lose their other animal.
If you think that they don’t have emotion and they don’t feel, it’s ridiculous because they feel. It affected her. Again, it was during COVID. She’s used to us being around her 24/7. Charlie dies and then things start opening up and then we start leaving the house, and then we moved six months after that. Her whole world got rocked.
I’m not making an excuse for my dog, but I’m telling you that’s when she changed. She became a different dog. She used to be very friendly. She loves kids. My grandmother, a 90-year-old woman, her favorite dog is my Lexie. She changed. She became very protective and concerned when she didn’t know where her people were or if someone was around her people.
One particular night, we would have a girls’ night at my home. My husband would corral the kids in one area and the dogs too. Bethany happened to be the one arriving before everyone else and Bethany being the tiny little person that she is with this big hair, she’s wearing a ball cap on her head. You have been to my house multiple times and been around Lexie like it was nothing.
I pity the fool that tries to break into my house. Here’s Lexie right next to my little girl and I don’t have a doorbell because we disassembled our doorbell because if a doorbell goes off. You can’t hear anything with three gigantic dogs barking. It’s horrible. I also didn’t have my cell phone near me. Even though you had called me numerous times saying, “I’m here.”
Also, I rang the doorbell.
The doorbell doesn’t work.
On a sidebar, Cher told me to just come on in. I’m doing what she said. I’m not just entering. She knows the girls are coming over. I’m coming on in.
Usually, I say, “Let me know,” but regardless. It doesn’t matter. She was trying to let me know. Long story longer, the next thing you know, I hear Lexie barking going ape shit and Katie going, “Mommy.”
I’m screaming.
I never even heard you screaming. I guess Bethany had poked her head in the door. She does one of those, “Hello,” with all this hair and this ball cap on.
I have a bottle of wine.
She’s got Publix bags full of stuff, her Louis Vuitton backpack’s on her back. She’s looking like a little packed mule coming into my home. My little girl and Lexie are right by the front door. I still to this day believe that if Katie wasn’t standing right there, Lexie would have been like, “What the hell are you doing?”
She’s protective of Katie.
In that moment of, “Here come teeth at me.” Bethany drops the bags naturally and doesn’t even think to close the door she just takes off.
That’s not what happened. I closed the door. Your dog already had her snout in the door and forced it open. My instinct was, “Shut the door and get the fuck out.”
I would have smashed her face. Regardless, I wasn’t in that situation because I don’t know how I’d react in this situation. All I know is Bethany is shaking like a leaf. I grabbed Lexie and throw her outside. I dragged her to get out the door and I’m like, “What happened?” Before I took the dog outside, we were standing there. You are still standing right next to the dog and now she’s fine. The first thing Bethany says is, “She’s bleeding,” talking about my dog. I’m like, “Where’s this coming from?” The dog is standing there like, “What the fuck happened?”
I’m the one bleeding.
However, we didn’t even know that you were bleeding yet. All I know is my dog is still standing right next to Bethany and everything is calm-ish at this moment. Lexie is not freaking out. That’s when you said to me, “She’s bleeding somewhere. Where is she bleeding from?” I’m looking and I’m like, “Nowhere.” That’s when I put her outside and that’s when you grabbed your ass and said, “Oh, my God.” I go, “You are bleeding.” It was the entire bottle of wine.
What I thought the dog was bleeding was wine everywhere. I was in such shock and worry about the dog still who took a bite out of my ass.
She did. She grabbed right down on it.
It’s funny when you are in those moments of shock and then you are trying to put the pieces back together in your mind of what happened. There are so many pieces that are blanked out still and then they start coming back to you.
You were shaking. I feel like it was the adrenaline because you were pretty level-headed.
What kind of dog is this again?
It’s a German Shepherd.
Imagine a German Shepherd charging you showing all of its teeth. I saw my life flash before my eyes. The first thing you are thinking is, “Am I going to get this dog off of me and not get chewed to pieces?” It took a lot of drinks to calm down from that night.
That’s not an exaggeration either. I think Nick was calling or texting Michelangelo.
Nick felt so bad. I’m trying to sympathize with Nick and calm Nick down because now Nick feels terrible that the dog bit me.
You were concerned about the dog.
I was concerned about your dog. I was concerned about Nick. He was so upset with the dog and she’s trained. He’s gone off. I’m the one who’s struggling and so terrified inside but I’m trying to calm the situation.
At one point, he did jump at you and said, “Would you stop worrying about us? What is wrong with you?” My husband is under the impression that he can get her to be comfortable around our dogs again. She’s like, “I’m good.”
From watching Dog Whisperer and all these shows back in the day, I have to get to that right mental state because they say that dogs can pick up on your fear.
It makes them uncomfortable like, “What’s wrong?”
I don’t want to walk into this introduction fearful. I want to have my mind over matters and bring myself to that place of like, “It’s okay,” but I need to have a moment in your house first and then I can walk. I need to be in the environment, go take a five-minute meditation, and then we will transition into the introduction. Your dogs are sweet and I love them and I will be around them one day, but I didn’t realize how much the trauma of that has stuck with me not realizing it has stuck with me. Weeks later I went to a store. I was reading the writing on a glass door and not paying attention to what was behind the door but there was a massive St. Bernard. The second I opened the door, the dog started barking like crazy.
I’d be terrified of that dog.
I instantly pushed my back against the door so the dog couldn’t get out. The owner of the store is like, “No, it’s a service dog. It’s okay. Come on in.” I’m talking to her through the glass and I said, “I will not enter your store until you put the dog up.” It was that moment that I was like, “That trauma.” You hear about it, but it stuck. I was like, “I have got to get over this because I’m a dog person and I don’t want to harness something that I’m aware of.”
At least now, you are aware of it. My Memorial Day was not too long ago and we have this joke in our family that we don’t do anything on Memorial Day because bad things happen on Memorial Day.
I was at your house on Memorial Day. Nothing bad happened.
Not that particular year, thank God. Someone probably hit their head on the pool or something, I’m sure. The point is that something bad has happened every Memorial Day. One of the bad things that happened is we were out at my cousin’s house. She has a few acres south of here and she had her dog. She and her husband at the time and his dog an eight-month-old Rhodesian Ridgeback. They are pretty dogs but dogs can have issues too. Dogs can have something off.
This one in particular didn’t. An eight-month-old dog is still very much a baby. It’s a puppy but still can do damage. My son at the time was 3.5 years old, Henry. He was walking through this yard next to my husband who is 6’2” and 220 pounds. He is a very agile man. My little girl is running through the yard as well and then there’s me. We are all walking.
There was a ball in the yard and I didn’t see it. My husband didn’t see it, but my little boy did. Henry walks up and no sooner does his hand go down to touch this ball than the dog is on him. It head-butts him and knocks him down and is into his face multiple times. My husband who’s standing 6 inches from my boy can even get him. When I tell you at that moment, it’s like, “What do you do?” All you see is that your kid’s face is bleeding.
Again, it’s my cousin who is one of my favorite human beings on this planet. She truly is and you have met my cousin. She didn’t know what to do. She was like, “What do we do?” We grab my baby. We are trying to get the dog. Her husband at the time grabs the dog and puts him away. That behavior was something that was repeated a few times. They knew that dog had something a little off with him.
It’s been many years now and she did have to end up putting him down. That’s because she tried to rehome him. She says, “It’s not his fault that he had something wrong in his brain and that her ex had never tried to socialize him. He just locked him in a crate,” and it’s true. Where I go with that is the resilience of a child versus an adult and not that I’m putting you down in any way, shape, or form, but I would expect more so that a child would now be fearful of dogs and overly cautious.
Whereas instead my little boy turns around and says, “I’m going to get my Charlie and he’s going to eat that dog.” That was his way of dealing with it. He has scars. It took somewhere between 8 and 10 stitches to stitch him up. He got right on his temple. It was close to his eye and praise God that it didn’t touch his eye and on his cheek. Praise God that it didn’t affect his lip.
There was a puncture underneath his chin. When Henry smiles, he has a dimple that he never would have had but the trauma didn’t last with him. Again, the resilience of children but it does go to show you that people need to maybe correlate dogs with humans a little bit more. They have their personalities. Sometimes they are not mentally right and that happens and then people start to look like they are dogs.
That is so a thing. This dog looks like Michelangelo 100%.
Michelangelo, I love you and I do think you are handsome. You are Andy Garcia-ish.
All my kids look like my husband and now my dog does too.
I don’t think all your kids look like your husband.
Certainly, when they came out and in baby photos, none of them looked like me.
When they came out, they probably looked like him too. They are wrinkly and squishy.
It’s funny because there’s a picture the breeder took of us of Rocco and my husband and I and I said, “I love this little fluffy mush so much.” They said, “What are you talking about?”
He’s so handsome. If someone was to draw the perfect picture of a Frenchie, it would be him.
I’m holding him upright and he is sleeping. He’s snoring.
He’s in heaven.
He is. “I just love my mommy.”
He’s trying to breathe and his little nostrils are getting stuck together. His eyes are rolling back in his head. That’s how much he is loving this itching of the ear thing.
My husband snores at night and now we got a dog that snores that night. There’s no sleeping and I am such a light sleeper.
It’s because you are a mom. If you rub behind Michelangelo’s ear, does he do that?
I’m sure his leg shakes. You guys always have a dirty mind.
Those sexual innuendos. They are always going south, which keeps it entertaining.
It does. You got to be lighthearted here.
I can’t with this dog. Could you imagine? Truth be told, if I was to try to bring my dog, I do have three, but I have a favorite. It’s Duke. The solid black. He’s like Ferdinand the bull but dumber. He just wants to sit and smell the flowers. He has no idea how gigantic he is. He thinks he’s the size of that guy. If I was to bring Duke, he could sit right here. Could you imagine? He’s gigantic. Also, we have Chase. Chase is named after the Paw Patrol.
He’s got the same colors as the little Chase from the Paw Patrol. Even though they are brothers, they are built completely differently. I’m not trying to call models dumb, but he’s like the stereotype of a male model who’s attractive. You can’t be that good-looking and have a brain, that is Duke. He is a sexy dog and is solid black. Chase looks like he’s a linebacker who’s ready to kill someone and he wouldn’t.
He would if you told him to kill someone. I think he would and then there’s Lexie. Lexie is a different type of German Shepherd. She’s from Czechoslovakia. Whereas the boys are from East Germany but regardless, she looks more like a female. She’s got a redhead personality. That’s her problem. She is a bitch. There’s a reason they call female dogs bitches. She’s a bitch and she walks like a bitch.
She needs the Tupac song, Wonda Why They Call U Bitch.
You are the one who taught me about that damn song. Now I’m going to look at my dog when she walks around and I’m going to hear that in my head.
It’s theme music in the background with Tupac rolling with her.
She’s a bitch. She rolls the roost. Now you have one dog and you have one guinea pig.
Yes, and we are stopping there.
She’s lying. She won’t stop.
We went from 0 pets in the past few months to 2 pets.
What do you mean by zero? You have had zero pets in the past years. Have you ever had a pet?
I had a dog. My husband had a dog.
No, but with kids.
When Enzo was first born, our oldest, we did have both of our dogs. Romeo, who was a Boston Terrier. Unfortunately, he passed away. We then had Bear and Bear wasn’t the same as what you are talking about. It was not the same after Romeo passed. The thing about Bear, I got him when I was single.
What kind of dog was he?
He was a Beagle Bulldog mix. He would nurse on blankets and he was very territorial of his blankets. He would like to corral all up in his little hands, put his mouth on it and you could see his mouth sucking, which the vet said he could have been taken away. I don’t know his history. He was getting very aggressive with Enzo and his blankets. Enzo was a baby and he snap at him. At that point, I had to make the decision. As a mom, “No. That is my baby.” A girlfriend of mine took Bear and I knew he was in a good home. That gave me peace of mind.
The fact that you had that story, we find a lot of interest in the fact that you and I have so many stories. When Nick and I first got together, he had a dog, Max. Max looked like Lassie shrunk down. I think he was a Border Collie Sheltie mix is what he was.
He was such a pretty dog.
He felt like a bunny rabbit. With the level of intelligence of this dog, you could sit and have a conversation with him. It was nuts. He understood every word you said. We would try to change things because he’d hear us. He was very anxious because again, a Sheltie mix and then being Border Collie, they are highly intelligent. We got the brains. It’s like you got the best and the worst. Anyway, we bring Charlie home and he raised Charlie. Charlie was only five weeks old and Charlie got to be significantly larger than Max. Max was only 45 pounds or 50 pounds. Charlie was 120.
To your point about what happened with Bear, we had sent Charlie away for some training. That is not a story I want to get into. There are certain dog trainers that are not what they say. That was a PETA thing and it was so bad. They hurt my dog. Charlie comes back skittish and scared and we didn’t understand that, but here we have got Henry.
Henry was getting to the point where he was crawling, which lasted about a week, and then he walked but was still a toddler, nonetheless. He would go over and he’d do things. Max was hypersensitive and one day Max turned and gave a warning to Henry.
An air nip.
It was too much. Charlie, who was very much full size at this point grabbed Max and had Max on the ground. Max soiled himself because it was like, “Holy shit.” You got a dog that’s 4 times your size on top of you right now or 3 times your size. We made the very difficult decision because Nick had Max since he was a baby.
It’s hard. Now, you are giving up a child.
I can say that still to this day, even if Nick was to say that’s not the case, Nick felt like I pressured him into rehoming Max but I also know my husband. If Charlie didn’t take Max out one day for nipping at Henry, Nick would have. We made that decision. Max had high anxiety and he needs a job. That type of a dog needs job. He was so highly intelligent but had this anxiety because he needed something to do.
He was rehomed to an adult who had severe autism and Asperger’s. Max became his dog. When I tell you my aunt helped match the dog up with the family. She would give me updates all the time to me because Nick couldn’t handle it. Nick didn’t want to hear but then we did get word that Max died of a heart attack.
How old was Max?
Max was probably fifteen years old.
That’s a good life for a dog. Marley & Me came out.
I watched that when I was pregnant.
I never watched it. After I learned what the storyline was, I was like, “No, I can’t.” I have a hard time getting through a Publix commercial. It’s private. Do you know what I watched when I was pregnant?
You have told me this story.
We watched Breaking Bad, which I’m like, “I need to make a meth lab.” We watched the motorcycle gang. The lead motorcyclist is so sexy. The motorcycle gang, why can’t I think about this? Bear with me folks, I will pull it up because it was phenomenal.
Everyone knows what happened in Marley & Me. That happened to Charlie and it didn’t happen the way that it happened in Marley & Me but Charlie bloated. It was when Henry was two weeks old. I had a C-section and I have got this newborn baby. We had to take him to the after-hours one night. We come home and it’s past midnight. All of a sudden, Charlie starts making this God-awful noise. It sounded like he was a hound dog dying. In essence, I guess that’s what was happening. We thought he had swallowed a golf ball.
Nick sticks his hand down Charlie’s throat. We call our vet, who praised God, and they answered their phone. He told us to take him to the emergency vet and they told us for $500 we can make him comfortable which meant they were going to euthanize him or for $5,000. We can fix the problem. Here I am on the phone crying. My husband was standing there crying because he carried this 120-pound dog because, at the time, we had no money.
$5,000 is like winning the lotto.
All I had was $550 in our account. I said, “What if I pay them $500 now? Can I make payments to them? Please don’t kill my dog,” and they did it. They accepted that and they saved Charlie.
There are so many people that work in so many different industries that have heart especially when you establish a relationship with people. I have had my hair salon for years and I have had clients that have fallen on hard times and I’m like, “Pay me when you can.” I’m not going to turn my back on you and not do your hair because you can’t afford it 1 or 2. I have never had a client ghost me or anything.
Also, you can tell. You know when someone’s story is true or they are just in a bubble but let that be on them.
As the person who owes the payment, I owe somebody money. Truly in my position, I establish such a relationship with my clients that I will continue to do it for free as long as we need to. That doesn’t bother me.
It’s not your motivation.
That show was Sons of Anarchy when I was pregnant. I was like, “Now, I need to join a motorcycle gang,” or whatever we were watching.
You have the hair for it.
Those were the two shows we binge-watched while I was pregnant. At the end of the day, dogs are lovers. I love dogs. I am a dog person. I am not a cat person. I say that I love all animals, but I am highly allergic to cats. Cats are so independent. I need a needy animal. Something needy and codependent.
I like both. I have always preferred cats just because I don’t want the slime and look at my house. If a cat came to my house, that cat would be dead.
The cat is not going to survive with those three.
I think you and I chatted before about our topic for this episode and how this could be a topic that comes up on more than ten occasions. People could talk to dogs. You can have an entire episode on dogs or dog talk.
Also, how much do they snore?
I was going to say, “I’m feeling like I’m going to join Rocco for a little nappy poo.”
My husband sends me a message because I have been slammed with clients. He has brought him to his office in the past days of having him. He sent me a message like, “You literally could not have picked a better dog for this family. He sleeps all day long.” He’s the laziest dog which is what the breeders told us and why I said I will not take the little girl who’s a nutso. I want the lazy one with 3 very rambunctious boys.
We are going to end this one.
If you guys have any crazy animal stories, I don’t care what the animal is.
As long as it’s not the Tiger King.
Everybody watched that during quarantine.
We all received less brain cells after quarantine. We lost a bunch watching Tiger King. I can’t drive down the road here because we live where Carole Baskin is.
I have been there multiple times. I have been to her cat rescue here in Tampa. I have been there so many times and then when this came out, I was like, “Oh.”
First of all, she killed her first husband. We all know what Nebraska Avenue is and it’s nobody just walking down the street.
They stroll very late at night and jump into a car with a guy that has a gun.
It was a load of shit.
If you have not seen Tiger King, you have got to watch it.
If you have time to waste in your life to just drown out reality, watch that.
I like mindless TV.
I do too. I watched it.
We want your stories of crazy, loving, and surviving animals. When an animal comes to rescue or says there are so many amazing stories. Find us @SlimeInMyStilettos on Instagram or email us at SlimeInMyStilettos@Gmail.com.
Bye, friends.
Bye, guys.
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