I have had Dixie Dog since the movie Because Of Winn-Dixie was in theaters, which as you might have guessed, is how she got her name.

She was a puppy born in Benton City, where her mother and siblings still live today.

Since then, Dixie has traveled to Florida and back. To Pennsylvania and Texas and every where in between. As much as I have raised my kids, she has done her job from my oldest to my youngest and now my two-year-old nephew.

She is a good family dog.

Well, at least she has been a good girl for the most part all these years. She had her moments like the time she pooped on my now ex-wife's side of the bed. Or the time we were living as a family of five in an extended stay hotel suite and went out to dinner to find she had eaten an entire brand new HUGE package of Charmin Double-Roll because we locked her in the bathroom.

We were gone all day so Dixie wanted lovin'...
We were gone all day so Dixie wanted lovin'...
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Now back in Washington where she was born, she has greyed a little. Now she has lost most of her hearing due to years of eating shitty dog food that infected her ears. (I didn't know she is allergic to corn.)

She doesn't like change as you may have surmised from the hotel incident, and recently I switched from the master bedroom to the room formerly occupied by my teenagers. That change has led her to begin in earnest a campaign of trash relocation.

The trash is scattered all over the house if the garbage can has any left in it when we leave the house. It has a lid with foot pedal, which she figured out how to open.

trash
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She used to sleep in the girls room and had begun eating their underwear daily. This gets expensive quickly.

My Dixie Dog is getting older, so these moments usually mean she gets put on the back deck for a bit while I clean it up. I haven't taken to a rolled newspaper in years, I am much better at being a dad to her now instead of an owner.

I love this dog, these moments are just a way for her to let me know she loves me, too. But boy I hate picking up trash and buying endless supplies of underwear.

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