Adventures in Dog Parenting

I had a dog when I was about ten. I begged my parents relentlessly for a pup and they bought me a cool little schnoodle (schnauzer/ poodle mix). He was a nice guy that used to escape from the house and run free in the neighborhood until nighttime. He would come home then because he knew his dog dish would be full. If it wasn't full he would kick it around the kitchen until one of us went over and filled it. If we didn't respond he would carry the dish to us, no matter where in the house we were. I can still picture that scratched little green bowl clamped tightly in his teeth as he would deposit it at our feet expectantly.

Chippy was his name and when we picked him up from Jack's Dog Farm we were told that he wouldn't get much bigger than a schnauzer. Unfortunately the poodle genes were in overdrive and he quickly outgrew our townhouse. Not only did he cause an almost daily ruckus by escaping the confines of our home, he used almost any soft item as his personal chew toy. I remember coming home from school and finding papers torn up all over the floor. Unfortunately he never ate my homework so I was never able to use that excuse. My mom's Christmas decorations did not make it through Chippy's first, and only, holiday season with us.

When my parents decided he had to move on to a better place we gave him away to a family that promptly gave him right back to us. It was a tearful goodbye and a tearful reunion. Oh no, he's back! When Chippy did go for good it was my understanding that he went to live on the proverbial farm with lots of space to run free. I often thought about Chippy out in the sunshine cavorting in the sunshine. I wondered if he ever thought of me.

Well, a new dog has entered my life over three decades since Chippy left it. Over the years my three kids have had a series of pets from the odd goldfish to tadpoles and even a rabbit. We had cats for a long time but allergies forced their eviction from our home and into the loving care of my mom. But the kids never had a dog. They do now.

For various reasons I fought the idea of introducing another living being into the house, but my own selfish reasons were not good enough to deprive the kids of a chance to enjoy a real pet (I'm sorry but fish and tadpoles just don't count as pets). So, just before Christmas last year we adopted a two year old dachshund/terrier/ miniature shepherd-looking sort of thing. I don't believe she is a dachshund since her legs go all the way to the ground, but the folks at the pound said it so it must be true. She had been dropped off at the pound without a name so they gave her the name Holly in honor of the holidays.

George Santayana famously said "those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." I can already see Holly heading down the path old Chippy took. But we have something in 2007 that was not available to us in the 1970's, we have Cesar Milan and his "Dog Whisperer" show. Please join me next month as we continue the story of Holly, the dog who will not repeat history if the kids, and Cesar, have anything to do with it.

Last month I wrote at great length about Chippy, the schnoodle I had as a boy. I also wrote about the dog we brought into our home last Christmas who came with the festive name of Holly. The errors in dog-parenting I made with Chippy I have vowed to not repeat with Holly. During the early days of her life with us I feared that history was going to repeat. But Cesar Milan the famed Dog Whisperer has proven invaluable to us.

If anyone has seen Cesar's show they will recognize the unique sound he makes to bring the dogs to heel. It is sort of a mix of a "click" and a "tisch" sound. I spent what seemed like countless hours trying to perfect this noise but to no avail. I eventually settled on a sharp "hey" and it works. It is cute watching the kids use their own variations of Cesar's sound to get the dog's attention. It is sometimes even cuter to see how often it doesn't work.

One of the biggest mistakes we make with Holly is not paying attention, or more accurately not understanding, what she is trying to tell us. During the daytime hours we are pretty good about reading the signals regarding when she is hungry (always) when she wants to play (very frequently) and when she needs to go out (too often for my liking). But it is at nighttime that the messages get a little fuzzy. After a long and stressful day of living in the 21st century, it sometimes gets hard to be motivated to take the dog for a walk at 11 at night (especially after the kids are all in bed and the latest episode of CSI: Miami beckons from the TIVO box).

The other night, at about three in the morning, Holly made her usual rounds of the house checking on the kids, my wife and then me. If she just looked in on us to make sure we were safe that would be cool, but I believe she is on a mission to find someone awake to take her outside. I heard the faint clicking of her nails along the tile floor in the back of my consciousness and mentally cried out "no, not again!" I, being the last person she approached, was finally roused from the remainder of my once sound sleep by the persistent nuzzles of her wet snout against my arms and face. When I pulled myself to a standing position she practically leapt for joy as I headed towards the door. As I stumbled back to bed I realized that I was the only one fool enough to actually get up in the middle of the night. Sleep did not return swiftly to me but dear little Holly was soon fast in the land of nod.

The final insult to sleep comes every morning just as the dreaded alarm rings. Just like clockwork she is making the rounds again, licking, nuzzling and pushing to make sure we are awake. I suppose if I did not enjoy the use of the snooze button I would appreciate her efforts to ensure that we are up on a timely basis but instead I see it as stealing those last fleeting moments of nighttime before the new day beckons. I think my growls at her are louder than the growls she makes at cat or dog that happens to pass by the house. For some reason my variation of Cesar's sound is totally ineffective at this point. I have yet to figure out why.

As part rat terrier I guess it should be expected that our Holly would always be on the lookout for something to hunt. Unfortunately, her instinct to dash about at great speed has caused much consternation in the family. From seemingly endless searches around the house for anything that moves (that is something that is smaller than her) to well thought-out escapes out the front door, the back door or the fenced-in portion of the yard, our cute and cuddly little Holly can bring a man like me to my knees crying out in wonder why did I ever get such a dog.

We have a large back yard which has been our kids' playground over the years. The only problem with it, at the time of Holly's adoption, is that it was fenced on only two sides. When Holly joined our family we did not do anything special to the backyard because we expected she would be a typical indoor dog (i.e. walk on a leash when she needs to be walked and that would be the extent of he interest in the outside world). Boy, were we wrong!

Every time we would go to the front door or the back door Holly would rush over and try to slip out between our legs. When it dawned on us that she probably needs more space to run than our house provides we began to explore fencing in the remainder of the backyard. Well, when the reality of that expense hit us we sought an alternative. We purchased a do-it-yourself electric fence system and began to install it. That process did not get very far.

The first thing the instructions said to do was to lay out the wire above ground on the area that we envisioned would be her recreation place. We did so, thinking that we were giving her a generous portion of land to run and jump and do all the outdoorsy things that dogs like to do. Once the area was cordoned off the next step was to hold the collar while it was activated and walk towards the wire to see how close she could get before the warning shock would be delivered. Standing in the very center of the area I began to step towards the wire. Once I had two steps behind me the collar went off sending shock waves through my body, causing me to drop the thing in pain. My wife and I looked at each other dumbfounded. We turned the collar down to its lowest setting and tried again. I started from the middle and got perhaps three steps from the center before my hand flung the collar away as if struck by a bolt of lighting. We quickly realized that even at the lowest setting our little dog would probably be fried to a crisp if she wandered more than three feet from the center of her area. A six by six patch of lawn was no better than being locked up in the house so we packed up the electric fence and abandoned that idea.

Next came a partial fence that enclosed the back door area and a portion of the rear of the house. It wasn't too costly because we did it ourselves. It was convenient because we only had to let her out the back door. But it also proved to be problematic. The biggest obstacle for us was that we could only get in and out of her area through the back door of the house. In our haste to build something, anything, to get her outside, we did not factor in the need for a gate. But the biggest problem of all was that Holly soon found a way to dig under the fence. She also found a way to get over the fence although to this day I am not quite sure how she pulled off that feat. Last time I checked she does not have wings.

At the same time we were dealing with the backyard difficulties the front door remained a hurdle to overcome. Not content with her own space out the backdoor, Holly continued to try to sneak out the front. The first thing we did was build a fence around the front porch and bordered it with a thin sheet of bamboo. With a gate that latches it seemed to be the perfect barrier. That is until the first time Holly dashed outside and shot straight through the bamboo, tearing it up and leaving a gaping hole in the fence. After attempts to fix the fence we finally settled on securing metal lattice on the inside of the fence so that she could not break through again. Boy, was it funny the first time she made a dash for it and hit that newly reinforced fence! I can assure you she has not done that again.

We decided that it was time to split the backyard in two and give Holly a larger space so that she could run more. We went out and purchased more fencing and installed it so that she could not dig under it. We installed a gate for our convenience. We searched every corner of the fenced in area for any possible way in which she could escape. Satisfied that she would be secure, we introduced her to her new playground and she ran about in joy.

We all leapt with joy and continued to do so%u2026until the first time someone forgot to latch the gate and she escaped%u2026again.

More to come.

Okay, the long promised addition to the Holly series has arrived. I am finding that the love/ not-so-much-love relationship I have with my dog is getting better. I do love Holly a little more every day. I've come to appreciate her in ways that I never could with my childhood dog Chippy. When Chippy would escape he would be gone for 8 or 10 hours at a time. It was hard to get close to a dog that preferred to spend so much time away from me. When Holly escapes she is usually back in the house with 20 to 30 minutes or so. And she is usually remorseful as compared to Chippy who showed not one iota of repentance for his shenanigans.

Holly really is a blessing to us. I do appreciate Holly for the positive impact she has on my kids. Whenever there is strife she has an uncanny knack to get in the middle of it and make us laugh, or at least distract us enough to forget what we were upset about. She does share her love with everyone almost equally. Depending on which bedroom door is open she will sleep with whichever kid is available. The only place she can't sleep is my special "watching television" chair. Somehow, she has wheedled her way into being allowed to sleep everywhere there is a soft, flat surface. I reluctantly allowed that and realize now that the trend will never be reversed. That is okay, though. As long as my one little reclining chair remains my sanctuary I can live with it.

I do have a major complaint about Holly, though. Holly does not carry her weight around the house as far as chores go. I understand that her biggest handicap is the fact that she does not have opposable thumbs. Carrying laundry baskets and grocery bags are tasks that are quite difficult for her to accomplish. I encourage her on an almost daily basis to grow those thumbs so she can pitch in with the housekeeping but so far she has rebuffed my efforts. Whenever I mention it I swear she just gives me a little snicker.

Seriously, though, Holly is an extraordinarily good-natured dog. She suffers without complaint being dressed in outrageous outfits. She doesn't mind being dragged down the street at a breakneck pace as my little boy takes off with her on the leash. She puts up with being a footstool and a pillow. She does get rewarded richly for her long-suffering, however. Every crumb of food that falls onto the floor, or into her dog dish, is gobbled up quickly and with complete satisfaction. She has a wonderful yard to play in and she has five (counting me) humans that watch out for her on a daily basis.

Chippy only lasted a year with us when I was a kid. He then moved to that great farm out in the country that so many dogs move to. This Christmas Holly will be celebrating her second year with us. In that time she has become our fourth child. She has grown up a lot and we have learned how to be fairly good masters. I am hopeful that she will have a long and productive life with us. It would be nice if the kids can be grown and gone while Holly is still on this side of Heaven. That would be the truest blessing she can bring to our family.