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dog gone smart bed
Invisible fence and american eskimo dog?

My husband and I are thinking of getting an american eskimo dog, I had a spitz terrier mix as a kid and his family has always had golden retrievers.

We like the size, intelligence, and fluffiness of the american eskimo. We were thinking when we were gone at work, we would leave the dog outside with a doggy door entrance into the shed where we would have a bed and cage for it.

We are trying to decide how to fence the dog in. An invisible fence would be nice but I can’t imagine leaving the house with nothing but that keeping the dog in the yard.

Do invisible fences work well enough that you can leave the dog home alone with one? It seems like the dog would be smart enough to realize it could just run through the fence and be free.

I wouldn’t trust an invisible fence at all. First, because some dogs don’t mind being jolted and will run right through it. 2nd, because if the dog does go through and tries to come back, it’ll be jolted again for trying to come home. Another reason is because the invisible fence doesn’t keep other animals out of your yard – so even if your dog is being good and is in the yard, a stray could waltz right in and attack him if it wanted to. I’d recommend getting a chain link fence or something like cattle stock panels. Stock panels are easy because you don’t have to stretch the fence. Good luck!

My Life Story… in a Nut Shell

My life story… in a nut shell

Prior to my birth:

My mom jumped a 2-story building to kill herself while pregnant of me, she did not succeed.

My mother’s murder:

I was not quite 3 years old yet when my mother’s life was taken. I remember thinking my mother died in a car accident because my step grandmother would tell me that what happened to her was an accident. I asked many times about how my mother died and I never got lots of information about it as a child. I later on was very scared to learn how to drive and I’m guessing that might be due to the old belief that my mom died in a car accident. I got my drivers’ liscence at 27.

3 sisters are separated:

Sometime after mom’s death, us 3 girls were separated between the 2 sets of grand parents. I was raised with my father’s parents who consisted of his dad, mother in law and half brother Pasca. My real father’s mom died in his teenage years, she was a Concert Pianist.

My other 2 (older) sisters were taken by my mom’s parents whom the mother was an alcoholic and I later on learned that her real father had died and had been an artist who would hit my mother with empty beer bottles as a child. Again, those are bits and pieces of stories from different parts of my family members at different times of my life.

Grade 1 success:

My grand mother helped me a lot at succeeding in my homeworks and I became head of the class which at the end of the grade got me an invitation to attend a music primary school named :Ecole Le Plateau.

By that young age I was also a talented drawer, I would excell in school drawings.

Somewhere around that age I met my dad. I don’t remember much except that I sat on his lap and he was very intimidating looking with his dark hair, eyes and beard. But he was friendly and he wanted a kiss good bye and my shyness took over and I ran away and hid in the house. From that day I was always very shy with my dad, would never hug him or let myself be hugged or kissed by him and I would never say I love you.

Later on I learned from him that his parents wanted to keep me and asked him to go along with the story that he was my uncle…I don’t remember any of that.

Grade 2 new school:

New environment and new kids were very difficult on me. My grades went lower right away and I got picked for being so skinny.

Grade 4 I chose piano:

For grade 4 I had to choose what instrument I wanted to learn, and I knew I was meant to be a pianist like my real Grand-mother : Gemma Carreri. The 2 grade prior to grade 4 was manditory violin and recorder flute. I quit the violin as I got blisters on my fingers but I kept up the recorder flute.

Auditioning for high school:

Grade 6 was over, and I really wanted to continue my piano so I worked hard to get into this Royal conservatory high school and was ecstatic when I got accepted after auditioning.

How I get the years jumbled when it comes to my neighbor Franco whom my grand-mother thought highly of. He was a few years older and real big compared to skinny me and started touching me sexually on occasions. I was an extremely shy and withdrawn person and I didn’t push him away. I don’t know what I was thinking, maybe I liked the attention.

Left to live with my dad:

Grade 8 or 9, my moods were a mess, I didn’t get along with my grand mother who would call me names like hammerhead, pighead…but in french or course.

My father lived a couple of streets to my house and I would lie to my grand mother saying I was going to the park and was actually visiting my hippy Kung Fu teaching dad with a bag of stolen foods, soap and other mecessities from home.

I ended up moving with him and we packed up our little belongings and went for a long trip to visit my sister Linda who was living in Kelowna, B.C.

Met Don Thomson:

In Kelowna, my dad became friends with my sister’s ex, who was the age of our dad.

We moved into his little rented home and he had a quiet friend living there too who was an old vietnam vet. The following month my dad, I and Don the vietnam vet moved into a small house in an orchard.

Despite my poor English, Don and I became good friends going for walks and looking at wild plants. I was 14 years old.

Sometimes Don would drive me to school and once he gave me a note which I didn’t quite understand because of the language. My father read it and panicked. It was a love letter to me. Quickly plans changed, Dad and I were headed back to Quebec.

Back in Quebec:

We lived in the country and I had to attend yet another high school.

In that school I was teased for my Italian last name: Nardelli which in french is very close to Marde au lit (shit in bed).

My entire stay with my dad only lasted half a year. I couldn’t stand his cooking, smoking, pot-smoking, poor living and having to practice Kung Fu each day.

After heated arguments with him, I finally returned to my grand parents and my old music school, where I was also bullied for my unfashionable clothings.

Kelowna was calling me back:

My sister LInda came to visit us in Montreal. I was always closer to her than my eldest sister Patricia who would tell me nasty stories of our mother and how mean she was.

Patricia had it difficult and looked after her 2 younger sisters when we were all together. She’s 8 years older than me and she used to change my diapers.

Somehow I managed to convince Linda that I was ready to leave home, and my grand parents gave me away gladly as I was a roller coaster of changing moods at home.

I moved to Kelowna and lived with Linda and her new boyfriend.Although it wasn’t my plan, I started thinking about Don and missed him dearly. I managed to find him and soon I was sneaking out of the house to meet with him.

Don and I had a plan to pass the states line, we took the greyhound bus to Osoyoos and then walked a long ways. Of course the police caught us across the border. He was let go and as I was a monor I was sent to a jail to wait for my sister to pick me up (2-3 hours)

By that time, Don had convinced me that my Catholic belief was just that….a belief and he taught me about Indian ways, crystals, and new age stuff.

Sex:

I turned 16 and my sister and her boyfriend couldn’t lock me up in my room anymore, I had the right to choose where I wanted to be, and I chose Don.

We lived in a one bedroom basement suite and he started pressuring me for sex. I let him try many times and would end up in a screaming fit, he would be gentle and patient but by christmas he started getting more anxious. So I promessed him that I’d do it for the new year. I finally bared it, it was over, I was no longer a virgin.

But another problem arose, I didn’t bleed after sex and he was convinced I hadn’t been a virgin after all! I started remebering bits and pieces:

Franco got on top of me, I was pinned down and so scared I couldn’t scream. His sister Anna walked in and interrupted what was going on, I ran out and to this day I don’t know how far that sex attempt had gone.

My dog killed:

Don and I had pets from time to time, one in particular was very dear to me: Chinook.

She was a half wolf and half german sheperd dog. Don was very strict in disciplinning her and would often resort to physical violence. Chinook would eventually act as if nipping back without touching skin. Don told me the dog was dangerous and would soon bite me. He took his 22 rifle and shot her, he missed and she screamed in pain. He shot her again and I ran out crying. I found her laying in her pool of blood and hugged her. Later Don put her in a garbage bag and burried her at the farm. Whenever we came close to the burial spot I would cry and that would make Don angry.

I thought I was next:

Other smaller pets were killed for stupid reasons: peeing in the home, puking worms…. and Don seemed stranger and stranger.

I was working picking strawberries and came up with enough money for a bus ticket to my sister’s in Kelowna. I left him without notice, without confrontation with 2 boxes of belongings packed, starting life all over again.

Moving around:

I moved about every 1/2 year, renting this or that, being subsidized by welfare, trying counselling (free stuff), working here and then there.

I eventually moved with some grown men and fell in love with friendly roommate Rick.

Nothing ever came out of this, not even a kiss, but I felt he was keeping me hanging on a string by sometimes seeming so interested in me and then backing away back and forth.

I got heartbroken over this platonic relationship and got thinner and sadder.

Learned about depression:

Early 20′s now, had a smart girlfriend who told me about depression as an illness. I went to see her doctor and he sent me to a specialist who was gonna put me on Lithium. I told a few friends and only heard bad things about that drug. I ended up being prescribed Prozac and it did help.

David Hewitt:

I was working in a cafe, I met this fun loving biker guy. He was an recovering alcoholic attending NA and AA meetings. We lasted 5 months.

He was a sweet heart, but he liked sex too much and I didn’t. We ended up moving to a cabin on a hobby farm where I was stranded and lonely. I was unmedicated then.

I got myself depressed being alone, crying and screaming in pillows.

I ended up contacting a church pastor begging for help to get me moved back to Kelowna where I stayed in a woman’s shelter.

Vlastimil Piroh:

I moved eventually into a nice side suite by the beach still in Kelowna. It was beautiful there.

I started dating my neighbour who was czechoslovakian. We argued a lot quite quickly in the relationship and we soon broke up…. that’s when I met Steven Rhodes.

He hung out at my place, we were chatting on the bed, nothing sexual yet.

Vlastimil peeked in the window and flipped. He tried to hit me with a bottle of pickles.

We patched things up and had a 1 year total relationship. He’s the one that taught me ballroom and 2 step dancing at bars and I love it. He was demanding thou, I had to be a perfect housewife, never denying him….So the arguments were endless.

He was going to bring me to Czech Republic to meet his family, I was even learning his language. He decided he was ashamed of me because I wasn’t dressed perfectly, I slammed kitchen doors,…stupid little things. He went to Europe without me.

He came back a month later and proposed to me with a beautiful ring, I agreed.

Within the next month he slapped my face twice, I ran away from that relationship too!

Steven Rhodes:

I met back with Steven and jumped yet in another relationship. He did a B&E and went to jail. I agreed to house arrest at my basement suite which lasted only a couple of months (still moving every 1/2 year or so!).

I finished hair dressing school, getting myself more in debt.

Once I broke up with Steven, I packed my stuff and got shipped by plane to my other sister’s (Patricia) in Montreal.

I lasted a week and found my way back to my home in Kelowna by forging checks a friend had given me so I’d have enough money to get back to Steven and live ($800.00 from 2 $100 checks!)

Steven and I decided to start computer school together. Not quite half way through, we used his student loan to come to calgary, where there’s work. He never lasted long at any job, a wimp, a drunk, and I was nagging him to look some more..

I found a minimum wage job right away but we still couldn’t pay the bills. I decided to swallow my shyness and pride and got into exotic dancing. (which was my longest lasting career! 5 years).

I got pregnant, couldn’t danced after 3 months so the bar placed me in the VLT room, money was tight again.

I had Emma on my 25th birthday
, C-section, she was an 8 pound baby!

We were living in a dumpy half basement suite in Calgary, I returned to dancing after Emma was 2 months old.

Steven and I had a rocky relationship, I couldn’t handle his alcoholism and I’d slap him, or kick him away…. I was becoming violent!

I broke up with him many times but always took him back. I saved for a SUV that he wanted, I didn’t have my driver’s liscence yet….. too scared of traffic.

We decided to move back to the Okanagan (Vernon) and his mom set up an apartment for us: We just had to find work to pay the bills. I did find a part time job right away but Steven would take the SUV and go to Kelowna to meet friends, to drink, to smoke pot, to be gone all night long.

My sister Linda came to my rescue again with a new boyfriend again. She helped me pack up my stuff and my daughter and we were headed to Vancouver where she had now been living for a few years.

On the way to Vancouver, her driving of course, we got into an accident and totalled the vehicle.

Everyone was ok, we found our way to Vancouver with her boyfriend. Linda was getting controlling when I was talking about finding a dancing job. That’s all I knew that paid well enough to look after me and my daughter.

Within a week I ran away with my baby back to Calgary where I stayed with a stripped friend and got back to my old job private dancing.

I received 8 grand for my totalled truck and I assumed the mortgage of a little house in Castleridge (Calgary). It was my home! Yeah!

Couple of months later I took Steven back in again plus his new loser friend Kevin.

Work was stressful because I had a bully co worker and I started getting revengeful by stealing makeup and stuff.

I broke up with steven again…
and again, finding different boyfriends each time… and getting back with steven when things didn’t turn out.

At that point I met a guy in Ft McMurry named Ian Young. I was messing with my depression pills, taking less… taking more.., but never being a big drinker, never touching illegal drugs.

Ian saw the hurt in me, he was sweet, he said he’d take care of me. But he had business to do in that town and I worked in different towns each week driving in a beat up car to strip in this bar one week and then another next week all over Alberta and Northern B.C.

We had a phone relationship for a month when I couldn’t reach him anymore and found out he was killed in a car accident!

Even if I didn’t know Ian very well, that death devastated me, and I returned to the familiar: Steven.

Jon Neil:

Money was going missing, bills were late, I needed more money.

I found a roommate from the customers at the bar I worked at full time again private dancing: Jon Neil.

We became friends, he helped me see that my relationship with Steven had to end.

He helped me in the process, it was chaotic like many other times where the cops were involved. But I finally succeeded!

Jon, Emma and I were living in my house, and it probably took me about a month of flirting with Jon and getting drunk while being on anti depressants, to jump into another relationship.

Here’s how I did it:

Jon bought me a bottle of wine, I got drunk ( no wine glass needed, just chugging from the bottle!) and I finally said:

I’m tired, I’m going to bed….are you coming?

Jon was a nice guy from the start, he was respectul of women, kind, courteous… but I was still in love with the father of my beautiful blonde daughter. I struggled with this for a long time….years. I had wanted to marry Steven but that was not a wise choice.

I decided to propose to Jon instead (who was much more stable with a job and wasn’t abusing substances)

We had only been dating a couple of months when I proposed to Jon on the phone (chicken!)

I did love Jon very much but was also scared that my love for Steven would overcome it because I was determined to not go back to him. So I was in a hurry to get married, to tie myself down…
Jon didn’t let me!

He made me wait a year before the actual marriage.

I made it! But the week of our wedding was an emotional wreck on my part! Poor Jon.

Quit dancing:

the dancing environment and cattiness was destroying me more and more. I was thieving more and feeling little remorse for it.

I decided to quit it all and got back into hairdressing which Jon was very glad about.

I got pregnant and I’m an even more unstable person when pregnant!

I started making enemies at work, stealing, …being mouthy…. and finally I quit.

Chandler Neil:

Had a son naturally, was so happy about that victory. 2 months passed by and post partum depression was setting in. I was getting angry easily and did my first half ass suicide attempt by taking tylenols and such. Was brought to the hospital in Calgary, was then released shortly after.

Have been prescribed serzone, paxil, forget what else, finally prozac again seemed to work the best. Other drugs made me too groggy and slow. Prozac helped me get up and get things done.

Drunken affair:

We are now living in Strathmore, am a stay at home mom trying to make part time money from teaching piano and internet businesses. We’ve been married 5 years now, together a total of 6 1/2 years. Got drunk one evening and decided to act on a crush of a local stud.. The carpet cleaner! I don’t know why I attempted again and again to contact that neighbour ( in vain). I don’t believe I’m unhappy in my marriage, my marriage with Jon has been the most level relationship in my life!

Maybe I’m craving chaos again!? maybe the same guy for so long is tiring! (longest relationship), maybe I’m just mentally ill!
About the Author

Rachel Neil is a Canadian mother of 2, and she’s stays at home and teaches piano.
You can find her blog here: http://rachelneildiary.blogspot.com