The Annoying Head-on-a-Wall

The family dog - our sweet precious Jacki-Wacky. Seriously she is bored nearly all the time so she spins to catch her tail. She barks. She growls. She whines. She absolutely LOVES her kennel where she spends her time when home alone, and when we've all gone to bed. There is one thing, however, that drives her insane: Critters. Even BIG critters!

We have a deer head on the wall in Cameron's bedroom. It was killed by a hunter-friend of ours many years ago. The meat long ago ingested and digested. Because this friend has MANY trophy heads and body mounts, this one particular mounted head didn't make it into the trophy room so it was laid on the floor of their basement home office. While working for these friends in their home office years ago, I constantly and consistently tripped over this deer head over and over. One day, around Cameron's 13th year birthday, I asked my friend Randy if Cameron could put this head on the wall of his bedroom, to give it a proper home. Randy agreed as he loves all three of my boys (they call Randy "Uncle Fester"). The deer head was promoted then from Uncle Fester's basement office floor to Cameron's newly painted bedroom wall. The precious deer head moved with us to Wichita as well last year and is still proudly mounted in Cameron's bedroom.

We've had the deer head for 2.5 years now...and the dog is still bothered by it. Just moments ago, I was again startled by a familiar sound: I'm sitting in the main floor hearth room and above me I begin to hear growling, snarling, barking, and spinning sounds. You see, Jacki looked up and "found" this head AGAIN! She has seen it for years, but something stirs within her occasionally and she must go into Cameron's bedroom on the 2nd floor and begin yelling at this dead head for no apparant reason. It just bothers her.

I'm home alone. I didn't make any deer animal sounds (that would be interesting). There is no smell. So why did she go up there just now bothered by and threatening the dead deer head AGAIN!

Maybe dogs aren't too different from humans. There are things in my past that for no reason, enter my mind and cause my blood pressure to rise or my pulse to race or my anger to burn. Why? What was it that triggered my mind and my memory to think or dwell upon something that makes me "spin" in my mind, "bark" at my family, "growl" at those who are only trying to help?

Maybe I'm bored....

Or maybe I just need to get over it! If it's not going to go away, then I better learn to live with it. If it can't be removed, then quit looking at it! If it belongs to someone else, then stop picking it up!

It's fun to look at my neurotic dog, try to diagnose her, and even learn a few lessons from her. As much as I complain about this crafty canine, she is a lovely part of our family. I believe we're all a little neurotic...just like her. Spinning, growling, barking, and snarling at those things in life that aren't real anymore.

Most of the time these things that bother us are better left dead. Let's stop mounting them in places where we remember them, and instead give them a proper burial, never to be seen (or heard from) again.