Finally Home-Lessons on Life from a Free-Spirited Dog (7 page)

We consistently had to caution people of his peculiar behavior and try to assure them that this dog was not going to hurt them.
They rarely believed us and often glared at us with a mixture of apprehension and loathing.
The more they backed up to escape this monstrosity, the more Buddy interpreted this as an invite to jump higher and faster.
This was another one of the bad habits that he had acquired prior to living with us that we had to break him of.

Some people suggested kneeing him in the chest to make him stop.
I did not have the heart to use any blunt force with him.
All I kept thinking was that h
e would get tired eventually
—
wouldn’t he?

Those who were not terrified did not know what to do so they nervously laughed.
This only encouraged Buddy more.
We were in an awkward position
of
trying to get people to come over to our house
despite Buddy’s over-eager hospitality
.

Only our dog-loving friends found the experience somewhat enjoyable.
For the rest, we really wanted to post a sign
instructing
on how to act near him
:

Please speak to him in a calming voice
,
and just don’t get up quickly.
Do not laugh too loud, don’t look at him, and don’t move around too much.
In addition, do not carry your drinks anywhere near him
,
and do not leave your valuables anywhere that he can see them.
If he is misbehaving
,
turn your back and ignore him (
as if this is
possible).
Do not pet him unless he is sitting, etc.

We never did post
that
sign, but now that we look back, perhaps it m
ight
have helped.

It was important to us
to keep him included
in our family outings,
so one day we decided to bring him to my mother’s house for a party.
Again, we
assumed that
after a long walk and a half
-
hour car ride, he would be tuckered out and would calm down.
Wrong
.
He ran through the house like an unleashed maniac, recklessly exploring all rooms within seconds.

I completely forgot about some of the things in my mother’s house and did not doggy-proof it
quite as well as I had thought
.
For example, my mother has little stuffed animals carefully arranged in a decorative sled.
Within minutes of us being there, Buddy
had dug
through the stuffed animals and grabbed two or three of them in his mouth.
He then ran top speed again, barking and jumping all over the place
and
terrorizing everyone there.

He ran downstairs and discovered
my
two cockatiels in a cage whic
h he promptly jumped on, scattering
bird food and feathers all over the place
before I could catch up to him
.
Thankfully, the birds survived it, but Buddy was insistent and kept trying to play with them.
I shut the door and locked Buddy out of the birds’ room
but he kept
crying
incessantly by the door.
After a few more hours of this, we had
no choice but
to take him home.
He was
completely
obsessed with
becoming
friends with the birds.
I don’t think they shared his enthusiasm.

His behavior was similar to
that
of a
problem child
whose
behavior the
parents complain about
,
but
that
everyone else finds hysterical.
He
wa
s methodical in his thinking and ha
d
the greatest sense of humor.
If you could step back for one moment and move away from the scientific aspect of dogs versus humans, Buddy
wa
s the epitome of a stereotypical wise
-
ass kid.
His motive
wa
s never to hurt, but to try to make you laugh, play, and well, sometimes
to
dominate.
He
could
push the most patient person to the point of
an explosive
temper and then bring
them
back with his beautiful eyes that exclaim
ed,
“I was just playing!”

Since he’d learned all of these bad behaviors before we adopted him, i
t grew to the point where we needed to strategically determine his next move before he did.
Once we were made privy to his way of thinking, things started to make sense
,
and on rare occasions we actually won
a few
of the battles.
Slowly, but surely, we were making progress.

With
some
dogs, it is all about changing the routine each day.
With Buddy, we found the exact opposite.
Routine helped us in a major way.
He
ate
breakfast the same time each morning and dinner
at
the same time each night.
So that he d
id
n’t choke on his food, we fed him half of it, let him eat that
,
and then g
a
ve him the other half,
with him
waiting for our command of “okay” before starting his meal
. A trainer actually asked to borrow that feeding process to use for his obedience class.

To keep with his routine, we took Buddy
on a walk five to seven days per week
usually after dinner.
He kn
ew
when we
would be
coming home each day from work as we
would always
find him
anxiously
waiting by the window the
moment
we pull
ed
in the driveway.
O
n the weekend
,
his walks
took place
once, twice
,
or even three times a day.

Routine helped us to communicate effectively with Buddy as well and understand what he wanted or needed. Though I would never truly
want to admit it, we gr
ew
to read his body language so well, that we
could determine the underlying situation behind
some of his most bizarre behavioral patterns.
If he
wa
s
really
acting up, to the point that nothing I d
id
calm
ed
him down, that
simply
mean
t
he ha
d
to poop.

When he st
ood
by the bathroom crying, it mean
t
there
wa
s an empty toilet paper roll he want
ed
to play with.
While walking up the stairs, if he
wa
s
walking by
our side, pausing on each step while
staring at us
, he w
anted to carry whatever it is that we
we
re holding.
If his tail
wagged
really fast, he ha
d
just stolen something of maximum importance and
wa
s looking forward to being chased.

He even let us know when he wanted his teeth to be cleaned. He would linger
by the
bathroom
sink
and wait for us to get
his own toothbrush and chicken-flavored toothpaste.
Some dogs won’t let you near their teeth.
Buddy, on the other hand
,
was
always
obsessive about
getting his teeth brushed.
He ha
d
the most perfect white teeth, even in his adult years
.

Lastly in the
ever-growing
list of Buddy’s idiosyncrasies, and probably
the
most important, if Buddy
wa
s ever quiet,
we knew we had to
run and find him…quickly.
Whatever he ha
d
stolen
wa
s
so
good that he ha
d
to relish the moment before he
letting
you know he stole it.

These
are
the
little
, but important
things
that
we learned throughout the past few years of his life…and we
we
re hoping
to
learn more for a few more years to come.

Knowing these
tidbits of information, I had written down
some detailed
instructions
for when the time came for us to travel and go on vacation.
Our friends and family la
ughed when they saw what was involved
.
When they finally did agree
to consider taking care of Buddy in our absence
, their faces turned white
as
I handed them a five
-
page manual on how to outsmart him.

“Is this really necessary?”

“He is just a dog
—
how hard can it be?”

Michael and I
just looked at each other and kne
w we were in for it
. We were quite certain that we were
going to hear of disasters to come.

After I distributed
the manual, I did not get any
enthusiastic volunteers. I
mmediately
, they all
claimed that they had somehow forgotten about a previously scheduled engagement and they were sorry, but they couldn’t help.

The few who stepped up to the plate and had the privil
ege of watching him at various
times have been
one of
Michael’s friend
s and
my mother and sister.

My mother, whom Buddy adores, laughs as she tells the story of
how Buddy stole her sneakers and then forced her to
chase him, only to then steal her ball of yarn
a second later
while
she was crocheting.

N
aturally, he
had
to run around the house like a maniac with that prize
.
After that
debacle
, we decided to kennel him while we were away
,
and thankfully, he and the employees were still in one piece when we picked him up.

We could not, however, manage to get him groomed at a professional dog salon.
Every
time we
tried
, it usually started off the same and ended the same.
We let the groom
er know that Buddy was a little
hyper
, perhaps
more so than most.

Their first response
was,
“Oh, do not worry about it at all.
We groom lots of dogs every week and there are always crazy ones in the mix.
He’ll be just fine.
We have a complete staff that is fully experienced and can easily calm him down
.
”

“Uh, huh.
Okay, I’ll bring him right in,”
I’d say,
knowing in my heart that it was not going to work out, but secretly hoping that just
this
one time it would.

Sure enough, more than once, after about an hour of Buddy’s arrival at the groomer, we received desperate calls from the main person in charge.
I knew what conversation would take place as I noticed the phone number flash on the caller ID.

As I answered, we politely exchanged greetings
until
the conversation took a turn and sounded a little something like this:
“
W
e are so sorry, but we are unable to control Buddy.
He keeps barking and almost hung himself on the grooming table
. We
cannot get him to sit down.
There will be no charge, but please come collect him as soon as possible.”