Finally Home-Lessons on Life from a Free-Spirited Dog (5 page)

We
encountered other people walking their young male and neutered and
golden retrievers
. Their
dog
s
were
calm
and obediently walked by their side quiet as a mouse
.
Our dog
, on the other hand,
was
pulling, jumping, barking, and causing a major scene.
We always just assume
d that
the
other
dog was older than ours
. W
hen we found out they were the same age, we
realized that
we did not have a typical dog on our hands.
Our training techniques couldn’t
have been
that
bad, could they?

During
our
“
getting-acquainted
”
stage, we
learned many things about Buddy. One of the things that we
found out
was
that Buddy was
a mischievous
and calculating
thief.
Anything that was within his range on the floor or in jumping distance was not safe.
We had to learn to see the world as he s
aw it, which was
low to the ground.
This meant getting at his eye level, looking for anything
within his line of vision
and promptly removing items that he
would be more apt to
steal.

Unfortunately, we learned this the hard way and a little too late.
There were times when his actions were harmless and even funny, and other times when they were a little more
disturbing.

One of those times occurred
within the first week of owning Buddy
before Michael and I were married.
Michael called me at my mother’s house to say that Buddy had managed to indulge in a
tasty
bottle cap.
It wasn’t
a nice clean edge soda bottle cap like one would have hoped (if you
would
hope for such a thing), but a sharp, jagged-edged, metal beer cap.
I could not imagine what compelled him to do so, but he
had
jumped on the counter and thought it was a good idea to
chomp down on
this.
I hope he thought it was worth it as I cannot even
imagine the intense pain that he
must have endured
as he swallowed it.

We felt terrible as
we had owned him for less than a week and already this would be our first call to the vet.
We awkwardly explained
the
story to them about how we
had
just
adopted
the dog and he was a bit over the top.

In addition,
for some reason
(most likely due to our nagging guilt) we
felt the need to explain that we were not heavy drinkers, but
that
he just happened to grab the
one
beer cap from the
one
bottle of beer
that
we drank.
I’m quite certain that
the vet
did not particularly care
about our drinking habits, but
we felt
like it was our fault and that we needed to
’
fess up
.

Once the vet heard
our pathetic story,
he gave us the following
options
:
get X-rays and operat
e
or wait a few days and
see
how he was
feeling
.
Since we
had
never experienced a dog that
had dined on rough-
edged bottle caps
as a snack
, we chose to wait a few days.
He was not behaving any differently so we
assumed that
all was okay.

After checking on him constantly and looking for any signs of illness, it turned out
that
Buddy was fine.
We did not think anything of it and almost forgot about it until three weeks later when
we found the bottle cap,
albeit rusted, on the kitchen floor.
There were no surrounding “objects,” so we were just thankful we
’d
found it and made sure to keep anything with sharp edges out of his reach.

We were not sure how it came out…but we decided not to let our imagination get the best of us and just to move on.
That information would remain solely between Buddy and the bottle cap.

Unfortunately, i
t did not
end there
.
The more valuable the item, the more
enticing
it was for Buddy to steal.
My mother reminisces about how she came over to visit one day and mistakenly left her pocketbook open on the bed.

I
happened to glance down and saw that it was
open and couldn’t help but notice Buddy’s stuf
fed animal was inside. I questioned
my mother
as to
why she had his toy in her bag, to which she looked at me like I was losing my mind.
In a slight panic, I immediately knew something was up as I couldn’t find Buddy and quickly
realized
that he had been
silent
for quite some time.

After searching the house, I
found
him in his crate quietly
chewing on
something.
As I moved in a little closer,
he began to wag
his tail profusely and bark at me.
Whatever he was eating, he tried to devour in a frenzied haste, but could not wolf it
down
as quickly as he had hoped.

Since he was already in his crate, I
had an advantage and
was able to grab the remaining object from his mouth without having a full-fledged chase throughout the entire house.
What I pulled out of his mouth was a
gooey,
half-eaten package of
cheddar
cheese crackers.

That
clearly
explained the stuffed animal in my mother’s purse
.
My mother
just happened to have
a small package of cheese crackers in her purse
. W
hen we weren’t looking,
h
e had ventured into the bedroom
,
jumped on the bed, looked for a treasure
,
and stole
n
his delicious snack.
In exchange for the crackers, he p
laced
his
toy in there.
I
suppose
he must have thought w
e would not be smart enough to notice the difference
,
and
,
sadly enough, he almost got away with it
.

U
nfortunately,
my niece was a victim of
some
petty
theft from Buddy as well.
She
, too, had
left her purse open while visiting.
As
was the case when
Buddy was gone for too long, I went looking for him and at the same time, he came running out of the bedroom barking as loud as ever. He had something green
wedged
between his teeth
and was
as
proud as c
ould
be.
As we got a bit closer, we saw what it was and couldn’t believe
that he was at it again
.

He had
rummaged through
my niece’s purse, bypassed all of the other items in there, helped himself to her wallet
,
and selectively pulled out a twenty dollar bill.
We were able to
salvage it just enough so that it was us
able. That is, aft
er we dried the excessive drool off of it
.

From that point on, I
warned
each
person that came over with any type of bag to make sure it was tightly
sealed
and positioned high enough so that Buddy did not have any access to it.

Aside from th
ose two specific burglaries
, h
e
frequently
stole
shoes, sneakers, socks, sunglasses, important papers, pens, plants
,
and cell phones
—
anything he was not supposed to have.

When company
was brave enough to come
over, we
gave them fair warning and advised
them
not
to put their belongings anywhere
within Buddy’s reach. For him, stealing objects that were off limits was much more fun than playing with his own toys.

It did not matter how many different types of toys we bought him, as both his cheap and expensive toys were quickly turning into mere threads inside of a few short days.

To subsidize his toy fetish, I
ransacked
through the attic of my mom’s house to find “puppy
-
safe” toys I had accumulated
during my childhood
.

The quicker we provided
him
with
toys, the faster I had to fix them up.
I had more stuffed animals in
“
surgery
”
than in Buddy’s toy chest.
I
developed some skill
at sewing, although I don’t think I ever found matching thread.
Buddy did not seem to mind.
It gave his toys character.

He would obediently wait by my side while I
repaired them
for him.
Ironically
,
it was one of the few times
when
he was calm and quiet.
I
finally
figured out why.
As soon as I was done, he
flashed
his beautiful puppy dog eyes
,
and I would give him his newly renovated toy.

He seemed to like these damaged toys the best; it g
ave
him a challenge to rip it faster
and
in half the time it
had taken
me to sew them. Our all
-
time favorite was one we nicknamed Lobotomy Bunny.
Buddy tore off half of its head, which stubbornly
I
sewed back on.
It was quite unattractive to say the least, but Buddy absolutely loved it.

After carrying these around in his mouth for a few days, they
became
quite dirty.
I
made sure to
wash them every few days
,
and they
were
as good as new.
I was quickly adapting to the new everyday life of dealing with Buddy.

Since his fetish did not stop at stuffed animals, w
e realized
that
we had to keep our sneakers and anything of relevance secured away in the closet
.
The good thing
was
that
Buddy
w
ould
not open doors if they
were
halfway closed.
(Well, not unless there
wa
s a thunder
storm, which is an entirely different
story).
This was the one
advantage
that we had going for us.

We were safe from Buddy getting into something he was not supposed to if we did close the doors halfway, but again this was something we
had to
gradually learn.
More than once we
came
home to
minor disasters, such as
our entire house toilet-
papered by our beloved dog.

If we did not know any better, t
his may have startled us at first,
but it was easy to identify
the culprit.
There was no way he could possibly deny this one.
Bud’s feet had toilet paper stuck all over his pads.
As he innocently wagged his tail and barked at us
as if to say that
we
were guilty, his nose had remnants of toilet paper stuck to it
as well
, as did the jowls of his mouth and
his
teeth.
He was clea
rly busted;
he knew it, and he couldn’t have been happier.