My Very Good, Very Bad Dog

by Amy Newmark

  Although she spent most of her time at the house, she was free to come and go as she wished. She was a good dog, and we hadn’t had a single complaint from the neighbors. She slept in the doghouse we put on the front porch and seemed to be very content.

  One sunny afternoon, I decided to walk the half-mile or so down our gravel road to the mailbox — something I hadn’t done in a while, since I’d been getting enough exercise trying to keep up with Boones.

  As I approached our nearest neighbor’s house, I was surprised to see Boones sitting on the front porch looking very much at home. She came running out to greet me, and Tim stopped his riding lawnmower to walk over and join us. Tim was a middle-aged, divorced father of four, and although we didn’t visit often, we got along very well.

  “What do you think of our newest family member?” Tim asked with a proud smile.

  As I looked around, expecting to see another child or maybe a new wife, he nodded toward Boones, who was nestled up against my legs.

  “Our new dog, Bones,” he explained, to my surprise.

  Caught off guard, I blurted out rather abruptly, “This is my dog, and her name is Boones, not Bones!”

  I’m not sure who was more stunned, Tim or me. But after exchanging very similar stories about our conversations with the fellow across the acres, it was easy to see why we both claimed ownership.

  Since Tim worked during the day, he had no idea that Boones was spending the entire day at our home. And while I was busy with my family in the evenings, I assumed she was sleeping in her doghouse.

  The reason for her quick weight gain suddenly came to light as well. She had been milking her good fortune for all its worth, eating at both houses twice daily.

  “Why do you call her Bones?” I questioned.

  “Because that’s the name on her tag.”

  “Tim, it’s Boones, not Bones,” I giggled.

  “Guess I need to see an eye doctor,” Tim laughed as he checked her tag to make sure.

  We decided that I would continue to feed her every morning, and Tim would feed her at night. That way she’d still know she belonged to both families, but would hopefully lose a little of that excess weight.

  We ended our conversation by congratulating each other on our newest family member and agreed to keep in better contact. Then I continued my walk to the mailbox with “my” dog by my side.

  Our dog-sharing arrangement presented no problems other than a little bump along the way when we noticed Boones was beginning to gain weight again. This time, however, it was not from overeating — it was quite obvious that she was going to be a momma.

  Tim and I acted like proud, expectant grandparents. We were confident that we could find good homes for all her pups, but after seeing them, neither of us could resist our picks of the litter. My family chose an adorable little black-and-white male, and Tim’s family decided on a beautiful beige-and-white female. We named them Tucker and Lucy.

  To this day, we still share Boones, but we also share the two pups. Since they grew up following their mom back and forth across the field between our houses, they’ve always assumed they have two homes.

  We call their momma Boones at our house, Tim still calls her Bones at his, and she’s clever enough to answer to both.

  ~Connie Kaseweter Pullen

  Seeing Red

  Fun fact: The way a dog’s tail is wagging can help people determine his mood.

  Our Beagle, Red, stood guard as he and I watched my new husband’s vintage Naugahyde furniture get carried into the house. Everything about it was wrong — wrong size, wrong style, wrong color. It was squeezed into our family room like a sumo wrestler in Spandex.

  “Honey,” I prodded. “We should start fresh. Why don’t we get new furniture that we pick out together? Something a little smaller and darker so it won’t show dog prints.” My husband looked hurt and perplexed. “You don’t like it? My stepfather gave this to me. It has sentimental value.”

  Sentimental value? Who gets sentimental over light tan Naugahyde and a forged-iron coffee table? For better, for worse. I had said these words just two weeks earlier. Is this what they meant? I looked down at Red. “What do you think, pal?

  It did not take long for Red to claim one end of the sofa as his resting place. Terrified of thunderstorms, it became his go-to spot whenever the skies rumbled and lightning flashed. There he would tremble and whine until the storm passed. A Beagle-shaped indent formed in the cushion, and scratches marred the surface, the result of Red’s attempts to fluff up the spot in preparation for his numerous naps. In time, the dirt he dragged in from the yard, coupled with the oil from his coat, created a dark stain. No amount of scrubbing with detergents and upholstery cleaner would remove it.

  Six months after our wedding, I broached the subject again. “Sweetheart,” I cooed as I inched sideways along the infinitesimally narrow space between the love seat and coffee table in order to sit next to my husband. “I think it’s time we decorate this room in a more adult style. You know, something that says, ‘We’re married.’ ”

  He looked at me sideways. “Why do we need new furniture to prove we’re married? We have a marriage license for that. Besides, Red seems to like it.” From the end of the sofa, Red lifted his head. His soulful brown eyes seemed to say, “Give it a rest, Mom.”

  I tried for the next four years. When a local furniture store advertised a ONE DAY ONLY sale, I propped the flyer against the coffeemaker. When a Craigslist ad shouted “MOVING! MUST SELL DESIGNER FURNITURE FOR A FRACTION OF THE COST!” I forwarded the link to my husband’s e-mail. When a flea market displayed a chair-and-a-half that would not usurp the entire family room, I texted a photo with the word “PLEASE?” Nothing worked. Finally, I decided to give it a rest.

  One June morning, the kind of intensely hot and humid day that typically spawns thunderstorms, I prepared to go out for a while. Red was curled up on his end of the sofa, basking in the breeze of the air conditioner and oblivious to the heat. I patted him on the head. “I’m going out, Red. You be a good boy while I’m gone, okay?” He thumped his tail against the Naugahyde. He really didn’t need a reminder. Red was the quintessential “good dog” that could be left alone for hours without getting into mischief. I never worried about chewed-up shoes or trash strewn about the house.

  My errands took about four hours and then I began the drive home. It was only then that I noticed black clouds in the distance. In a matter of seconds, they were on me, spilling their contents in such a torrent it was almost impossible to see. The wind pushed against the trees, bending the limbs at dangerously low angles. An alarm sounded from the car radio, followed by a weather alert: “TORNADO WARNING! SEEK COVER IMMEDIATELY! DO NOT STAY IN YOUR CAR!” I pulled into the nearest parking lot and ran toward the supermarket. I was drenched but safe. Then I remembered: Red! He hates storms! He must be frantic!

  As soon as the rain subsided and all danger was past, I jumped in my car and quickly headed home. As I opened the front door, I yelled, “Red! Red, where are you? Are you okay?” I entered the family room and, to my great relief, Red was calmly sitting on his end of the sofa. I wrapped my arms around him. “I was so worried about you! I know how frightened you are of thunderstorms!” As I held him close, my eyes moved to the corner of the sofa… and I beheld one of the most beautiful sights I had ever seen: a hole. A large, gaping, conspicuous, irreparable, beautiful HOLE! Sofa stuffing was all over the floor, along with torn bits of Naugahyde, but they may as well have been diamonds to me. I took a picture and sent it in a text to my husband. “Please don’t be mad at Red. He freaked out during the storm. It wasn’t his fault!” I was so thankful he couldn’t see me grinning.

  When my husband arrived, he surveyed the damage. “Can it be fixed?” he asked.

  “I’m afraid not, sweetie. Once Naugahyde is torn, it can’t be sewn up.” I honestly didn’t know if this was true or not, but it sounded plausible. “It looks as if we’ll have to get rid of it. And since the love seat a
nd coffee table are hard to match, we’ll have to get rid of those, too.”

  My husband looked crestfallen. “Fine!” he barked. “Call someone to get it out of here!” Really? Finally? Oh, what sweet music to my ears!

  It did not take long to find an organization that would take the stuff. Red and I stood on the front lawn and watched the last vestiges of bachelorhood get loaded onto a truck and taken to Naugahyde Hell, or wherever Naugahyde goes when it dies. I looked down into Red’s face. “Ya’ did good, pal. Thanks.” Red’s tail waved in reply. I’m not certain, but I could almost swear I saw him wink.

  ~Laurel Vaccaro Hausman

  Well Trained

  Fun fact: If your dog urinates in the house, it’s important to give the spot a thorough cleaning or he may use the same place as a toilet again.

  Olivia was hard to house-train. Having grown up with Golden Retrievers, I was used to dogs that pretty much trained themselves and usually did so within a day of arriving at our house.

  Not so with our darling Terrier-Hound mix. Olivia came to us from a rescue. She and the rest of her litter were abandoned in a drainpipe, and she had a stomach infection, mange and worms, so she didn’t have an easy start.

  But even after she became healthy, she was reluctant to go outside. She would look up at me with her big, long-lashed brown eyes as if to say, “Why do you want me to go there when there are perfectly good spots inside?” I learned, from our trainer, that Terriers have a bit of a stubborn streak, but once they learn something, they learn it well.

  Finally, I resorted to umbilical-cording her, or rather, tying her leash around my waist so that wherever I went, she went. If I caught her crouching, I would rush her outside to the designated spot and praise her for doing such a good job. Once she got the motions of going outside, I had to learn to recognize her cues.

  Some dogs bark or scratch or ring a bell by the door. I had to catch Olivia’s almost disdainful glance at the door. But I am a quick learner, and she is a solid, though slow learner. Eventually, we got the hang of things — so much so that my husband and I prided ourselves that she would only go in one section of the yard. It was a very tough, but valuable trick for her to learn, but learn it, she did.

  It was all well and good until we decided to throw a party one summer, and my husband wanted to build a bar right on the edge of her spot. “What about Olivia’s spot?” I asked.

  “Oh, we’ll just walk her these two days before the party, and I’ll take it right down afterward,” he assured me.

  I thought that was it.

  Olivia thought otherwise.

  That night, she — who hadn’t had a single accident since she learned how to go outside — left a present for my husband under his favorite chair in the living room. “I’m sure it’s just a coincidence,” my husband told me. “After all, we were out late getting ready for the party.”

  Another day passed in a flurry of party preparations. Olivia was watching. When the bar remained in her spot, she left another present for him.

  But this time, it was smack-dab in the middle of his pillow. She had to have really worked at delivering this directly to him, and I’m pretty sure it was quite deliberate since I had a bunch of clothes tossed on my side of the bed, and not an item of mine was touched.

  The next year, my husband set up the bar in a different part of the yard.

  The moral? Don’t ever mess with a dog’s special spot.

  ~Jeanette Hurt

  Reprinted by permission of Jonny Hawkins

  The Boxer Rebellion

  Fun fact: Boxers got their name because they often use their front legs when they fight, so they look like human boxers in the ring!

  “Ma’am, there is a dog on your roof!” I turned from my flowerbed to the bug-eyed driver and sighed.

  “I know — I’ll get him down. Thank you.” I dropped my shovel and headed to the porch where my Boxer hung his head over the ledge to taunt me. “Yogi, get down. Off!”

  His jowls were in a full smile, and I heard the patter of four more paws on the shingles. The two Boxers bounced from roof peak to peak like they had conquered the world. My shouting wasn’t working, so it was time for Plan B… bacon. Despite their happiness about being on the roof, Yogi always got a little scared on the way down. If the bacon failed today, I would be forced to crawl up to reach him. The only thing more humbling than climbing on your roof to corral two happy dogs is scooping poop at that altitude.

  The recipe to have dogs on your roof is simple: Mix a full-time job and evening graduate school with two smart and ornery Boxers. Add in an exterior stairway covered by shingles that ramps up toward your roof, and simply wait a few months. The garage roof was four feet higher than the stairway roof, so the gap was too high for a creature to cross, right? Not for Yogi.

  Yogi was special from the time I got him. After getting my first dog, I started volunteering as a foster mom for the local Boxer rescue. I thought it would be nice for my puppy to have some company during my long workdays.

  “Sharla, guess what I have?” The rescue coordinator barely paused on the other end of the line. “It is a three-month-old Boxer that was abused and turned into the pound. The family bought him from a breeder, but they are going through a divorce. He is so malnourished that his wrist bones are soft, and he’s kind of walking on them. It might be permanent, but we have some vitamins that may help. And his feet are raw. We have no idea what happened to them. They will need to be soaked and wrapped regularly for a while. Can you foster him?”

  After nursing the squirmy, bony, cuddly, little puppy back to health, I knew he wouldn’t be leaving my home. With a full belly, his wrists firmed up so that he walked correctly, and his paws healed over time. But some emotional scars remained. Yogi would get very anxious if I was home and he was not with me. Anytime I was in the house, I had a shadow.

  I would no more put the dogs outside in the fenced yard, put up my feet and crack a book when Yogi’s whining would start. When I ignored his cries to come immediately back inside, he decided that the outside stairway roof could help. Yogi would climb the ramp, stand on the window air-conditioning unit, smoosh his face against the window and fuss at me as I glared back from the couch.

  As with any other mischief, I suspect that a cat was to blame for the eventual leap to the roof. My neighbor fed stray cats and my two dogs loved chasing the cats that didn’t respect the boundaries. Whatever the cause, once the roof gap was conquered by one dog, the other quickly followed suit. Instead of staring through the slats of a privacy fence, the dogs had full view of the entire neighborhood from the roof. This was perfect for barking at cats and neighbors.

  Because the situation seemed equally unsafe and embarrassing, I quickly constructed a barrier. I started at the bottom. I built a barrier with lattice and painted it red to match the fence. Yogi jumped over it. I doubled its height. Yogi got around it. When I reinforced it, the wind repeatedly brought it down.

  So I abandoned the bottom barrier and went to work on the top with a spare piece of lattice. Yogi the magician would somehow jump an even larger gap to get around that, too. I wondered if his new maneuvers were even less safe than what I was preventing. After each failed attempt, the dogs would become more excited about the roof, and more courageous in defeating every barrier I tried. I’m not sure what looked more ridiculous — the dogs on the roof or the barriers.

  I tried to think like a dog. The problem with my barriers was that the dogs could still see the temptation — the alluring roof. I needed to block their view with a wall. I hunted at Walmart for a solution.

  What I found was a folding table. I lugged the table onto the roof. I opened the legs and set it on its side at the top of the ramp to look like a wall. It worked! The dogs saw the barrier and didn’t try to jump on the roof. At last, I found peace. My dogs were safe, the neighbors stopped taking pictures of my roof climbers, and all was well. Then it stormed. My table came hurtling off the roof, denting the drain spouts on its way to the groun
d. The following day, I dragged my wet table back onto the roof. I reinforced the legs with five-pound dumbbells. It was a sight to behold.

  With every storm, I became more proficient in knowing precisely where weights needed to be placed on the table legs. The table corners were busted and the inside filled with water, but the barrier remained successful. Each time the table blew down, the dogs would resume their roof escapades until I got it readjusted. After five years, the circus finally ended when I moved to the country, where the house didn’t come complete with a rooftop ramp.

  Yogi is twelve now and has settled into a more relaxed pace of life. I wonder if he sometimes dreams of being back on that roof, surveying the whole community and barking at invaders.

  ~Sharla Elton

  Encountering the Beast

  Fun fact: Great Danes, Mastiffs, Irish Wolfhounds, St. Bernards, and Newfoundlands top most lists of the world’s largest dog breeds.

  I had been walking most of the morning through the Spanish countryside, in my third week of a hike to Santiago. Before leaving home, I had attended a talk on the trip I was about to take. The most important warning was about the wild dogs I would encounter on my trip. Being a cat person, I had never really understood dogs, and so I accepted that there would be feral animals lying in wait for unsuspecting hikers like me. I made up my mind that I would avoid contact with them at all costs.

  That had not been difficult so far. Most of the dogs I had encountered had displayed the predicted ferocious traits, but all of them were chained up in the front yards of houses and farms. I was able to pass unmolested.

  This day, I was in the process of looking for a place to stop for a sandwich and café con leche. The town I saw up ahead looked like it might have a café.

  The odd thing about walking into many Spanish villages near midday is that they are often deserted, as everyone is at lunch. This one was no exception.