Finally Home-Lessons on Life from a Free-Spirited Dog (8 page)

Knowing this, we decided it would probably be best for everyone involved if we were to groom him ourselves.

We went out and bought shampoo, a brush, nail clippers
,
and a doggy-strength razor.
It was not the groomers
’
fault.
It took two of us to hold him down just to
brush
Buddy.

Clipping his nails was something of an all-day task
,
and shaving him was split up over a period of two days
. There were some days when
he
walked
around with half of his body shaved
for a day or two, until we got
the energy to shave the other side.
While he was always clean, sometimes
he
looked like he had a bit of a rough night.

As the months and years grew on, we grew to know Buddy even better.
He was always a challenge to us, but certain things
did come
together.
He was never calm, but
activities
such as
car rides, while
never enjoyable
, were better.

Buddy learned to stay in the backseat, though not in one spot.
He was like a ping pong ball back there, but at least we did not have to wear him as a hat
like the first night with him
.
We tried to get one of those doggy seat belts.
This more or less resulted in me wearing the seatbelt and Buddy driving the car.
Oka
y, that might be a
slight exaggeration, but let us just say that it did not work out.

We did come to understand that he did not have a bad bone in his body.
He was a pure love.
The typical hunting instinct that many retrievers possess did not fully find its way into Buddy’s character. While he enjoyed hunting for treasures or chasing little creatures, he never wanted to hurt them.  I found this out on a whim, but it was interesting to watch.
D
uring the first few
months of us
living with
him, I let him outside in the backyard one night as I always did.
He took off like
a
bat out of hell,
and at the
same time so did another creature
.

Some strange
animal
that I could not identify
was in our backyard.
As it met Buddy in the center of the yard, I quickly realized exactly what was lurking back there.
Those unsightly glaring eyes and long tail could not be mistaken.

There, meeting Buddy face to face was
nothing other than
a monstrous, red-eyed, creepy-looking opossum.
I think I
screamed the most blood-curdling, award-winning, horror-movie scream and probably scared Buddy, the opossum, Michael
, and about a
third of our neighbors
as well
.

Michael
raced
down the stairs thinking I was getting murdered
. W
hen he saw
that
I was alive and well,
he
noticed me by the back door with one foot
planted
in
side of
th
e house and
one foot outside. I
couldn’t decide if I wanted to
stay put or go outside
to
try to split up a possible fight.

I was terrified for a few reasons.
One, I did not know if Buddy was going to attack this
creature
.
Two, I did not know if this opossum was going to kill Buddy
,
and three, to reiterate, the opossum that close up was just
really
freaky
-looking.

Michael was the brave one and
walked
out to the center of the yard where the two animals were positioned.
Miraculously, the opossum
ended up
play
ing
possum
like he was dead on the ground.
Buddy just smelled it, looked at me as if I were a bit strange
,
and moved on to his potty area.

He left the opossum where it was and kept on walking, not hurting a hair on its unattractive opossum head.
The opossum got up and
leisurely
walked to its original
location
, wherever that may
have been
.
Neither of them seemed affected by their chance meeting, yet
I
was the one still trying to recover
from a safe distance.

Later that same year, there was an injured bird hobbling around in the backyard.
As I let Buddy outside, I had not yet noticed exactly what it was, but I did see something moving awkwardly in the corner of the yard.
I realized
that it
was some kind of wildlife and
with regret,
thought that Buddy would make that
his dinner before I could stop him.

Again, Buddy
ran full s
peed to say hello to this creature
, but abruptly stopped short.
He soon realized the bird was injured, barked
,
and ran halfway toward me, barked
,
and
scurried
back.
He did this a couple of times and then circled
around
the bird.
I
hurried
over
to see what he was up to and soon realized. Buddy seemed relieved to have gotten my attention and assistance.
He could have easily killed this bird, but
had
not touch
ed
it. He just did not have the heart to
hurt anything
.

Though he
could be classified as
certifiably insane, he
was
great with all animals, kids
,
and people.
He just had
too many owners, bad training, and
an over
abundance
of energy
. T
here was not enough exercise that would keep his abnormal energy level content.

We were able to deal with him and understood that we had a lot of hard work ahead of us to break his habits, but at times it was trying.
He was sometimes such
a menace, and a lot of times simply
out of control.

We did not mind so much that he would
do outrageous things, such as
jump
up and down
on the couches, but
there was an in
cident one day that involved breaking one of our matching lamps that we
had
purchased
only
a few weeks prior.

After
jumping on the couch, he was trying to tackle Michael
,
and in the midst of his wild episode
,
he knocked over the ceramic lamp, shattering it in
to
tiny little pieces.
We got so annoyed at him because he just would not stop…ever.
He always wanted to play-fight.
It never ended.

After
mulling it over
for a while, we started to
analyze
the situation
. We
fe
lt
badly for him since he was alone all day long with no one to pal around with.
It was possible that
he was the type of dog that just needed a playmate who could keep up with him.

After some deliberation, we figured we would try to find him one.
How c
ould
a dog with so much energy be alone all day while we worked?
As it turn
ed
out the timing was somewhat perfect to invite a new puppy into our lives
;
however
,
the circumstances allowing that timing were not.

To conquer loneliness, it is nice to have a friend to pal around with, snuggle with
,
and
,
of course, start a long-awaited wrestling match
with
!

It was the day after 9/11 when I got let go from my
supposedly
stable and decent job at the company where I had been
employed
for ten months.
While watching the events of th
e
terrible attack unfold on a small television in the office, I heard the owner of the company
mumble to himself that the
t
owers’ falling “wasn’t good for business.”

I never understood how this person could focus on what was good for business while people were suffering or dying
,
and the United States had just begun its war on terror.

The next day
,
he let
the newest
employees
go, which included me
since I
had been there
under a year.
The events of 9/11 were devastating enough and this lay-off just added to the eerie and disconsolate silence that existed during that horrible time.

Initially,
I was upset about the lay-off,
but
I placed some phone calls to contacts I had made throughout the years
. Luckily
, I was able to land another job with an employer from a previous job.
I would need to wait approximately two months for a position to be made available for me
,
though, so I had some time to relax and actually enjoy my time off.

Michael and I agreed it would be a good idea to start visiting the puppy stores since I was unemployed
and
would have ample time to train
a puppy
during the day.
It was a tough decision since we
had
not
even
ha
d
Buddy for ten months, but due to the fact that I love
d
dogs
and had plenty of time
, I figured we could make it happen.

If we had survived Buddy, we could certainly handle another dog.
We searched around and found a few viable possibilities.
In one store, they advertised a
n
extremely
low price for a golden retriever.
We could not wait to meet her
,
as we assumed it was this cute three
-month-old that had
been there for a few weeks.

We asked if we could play with her while we waited to speak to someone.
Without actually confirming that this pup was the one for sale, we took her in
to
the puppy playpen to get acquainted.

After playing with this pup for a few minutes, another employee came in
to
the little
pen and smiled at us curiously
, wondering why we were playing with
this
particular
pup.

He
then
asked
us
if we were ready to sign the adoption papers.
Thankfully, we made sure that
one was the correct one for sale.

“Well, we saw the discount price on the window and we would love to take her.
She is perfect
.
”
I think we already had her name picked out and kept talking amongst ourselves.