I haven't told anyone except for my boss and my best friend about the hell we have been going through here since we bought the dog. It isn't the fault of the dog, except for the fact that he exists at all.  He's a good boy and getting better by the day. However, the church whose rectory we rent has not been happy about our acquisition, and my mother has been beastly. 

A great deal of it is on our own heads. When we moved in to this house nearly four years ago we signed a lease in which we agreed not to have any animals. The parish council was specifically speaking about dogs, as the previous tenant had owned large, uncontrolled dogs who tore up the garden and the woodwork.  Three years ago we introduced a lizard to the house, but as he lives in a terrarium and doesn't smell or make noise, no one has even commented. However, our younger daughter has wanted a dog since she was a pre-schooler and we have yearned to get her one; my husband grew up with dogs and has been hankering after one again ever since reading Marley and Me last year. It has been a wish we have wanted to fulfill for our daughter and an impossible situation that we have felt ourselves in. 

Last year we learned that the situation was not impossible. Specifically, the Landlord & Tenant Act of Ontario forbids, actually voids all leases with no animal clauses in them. No landlord can refuse a tenant or evict a tenant for owning an animal unless it is a nuisance to the neighbours or does substantial property damage. We checked this online and by speaking to representatives of the Landlord/Tenant people on the phone. With that in mind, we decided to purchase a dog for our daughter, but to do it right - get one that was neutered, had its shots, old enough that it was already paper trained, and that had some training already. We saved for obedience classes, licensing, insurance, etc. 

Now maybe we should have consulted the church before we went ahead, but we definitely felt that we were old enough that we shouldn't have to ask anyone's permission before making a permission. We're just so sick of people [mainly my parents] telling us what we should do. So we got the dog. Within 24 hours parishoners were already calling the minister and church wardens at home to point out that they had seen a dog on church property; were we allowed to have a dog? The joys of living in a fishbowl. My mother found out about what she calls "the animal" on the Sunday [two days later] at church and nearly blew a gasket. I received a phone call during which she called me several foul names and a promise that she would have me evicted. 

A few days later, my husband had a friendly meeting with one of the church wardens, a kind, extremely intelligent man, for whom I have a great deal of respect, and together they discussed the issue. It was a fortunate coincidence that the warden is retired from the same profession as my husband - he taught and my husband teaches high school English and History. Curious, eh? So they had a good jabber about teaching, curriculum, dogs [the warden is a dog lover] and were feeling very matey before they even started discussing the problematic issue, which, my husband tells me, was not a tricky discussion at all. The tricky thing has been waiting for this evening - parish council meeting, during which the powers that be at Holy Trinity would decide what to do with us. My mother is part of that council.

The warden to whom I referred in the previous paragraph called us at 9:20 this evening - as soon as he got home. There had been no serious talk of evicting us, and if we would meet him and the other warden at Tim Horton's [highly popular Canadian donut shop] on Saturday, we could all sit down and discuss what happens next between us and parish council. I think I may be breathing deeply for the first time in weeks. 

My happiness would be complete if it were not for my bloody mother. I know that she, crossed in her determination to remove us from our place of residence, will be fucking furious [she likes to be in complete control of the situation], and will probably show herself at the door to the house tomorrow. I do not plan to let her in. In fact, although I have not yet informed her of the situation, I do not plan to continue our relationship any further. Any woman who would seek to evict her daughter, especially while her father is suffering from cancer, and when there are three grandchildren involved, does not deserve to be my mother. It has been a difficult decision and in many ways I have been mourning my mother in the same way that I would mourn her death, as that is how final I feel that my decision is: that I will never see her again in her lifetime. 

I am so glad that we will be staying here. I love this house, I love the property, I love the village, I love the golden maple tree outside our bedroom window, I love the birdsong in the morning, I love my ensuite bathroom, I love the dew on the grass, I love my study, and I love having a life here. It is so good that we do not need to uproot ourselves. 

Woot!