My Other Son, Buddy

In October of 2006, my wife was trying to politic for a dog for her birthday.  This was an obvious “NO SOUP FOR YOU!!” request and she knew it.  Our previous animal weakness occurred on 9/11/2002.  She worked in downtown Fort Worth and made the mistake of taking her lunch hour outside at the very sorry “SPCA - 9/11” rally.  They felt it was already very appropriate to piggyback the tragically lost lives of our loved ones from the cowardly terrorist attacks with the needs of our mistreated animals in shelters.  The hair on the back of my neck was like a shark fin when I heard of this event.   The problem?  I learned of the event after she had made eye contact with a shelter survivor – a horrible optical placement error on her part.  Within nanoseconds she had signed ownership papers and somehow was now the proud owner of a new transport kennel for an abused Miniature Doberman Pinscher.  If the love of this animal was shown to us through the act of submissive wetting, then this animal loved us more than anything has ever loved our family.  Within a few short weeks, Noel (an obviously under-thought Christmas gift name for a soon-to-be abusive family) was able to change the shade of our white carpet in our house to a dull amber hue. 

Noel slowly sucked the life out of the entire family.  She did have one redeeming quality now that I think about it.  She loved to dig her way out of our backyard.  Maybe I did have a little admiration for her in a Steve McQueen kind of way.  I especially loved the part where she cleared our backyard fence by jumping down a ramp of Legos on a scooter.  I could have made a fortune with that one but every time I’d try to get her to do the trick in front of someone else, she did her impression of the Warner Brothers frog and would just sit there, wetting the pavement around her. 

One day, she gave me a great early birthday present.  She dug out of our backyard and apparently caught a Greyhound bus back to Dobermanville.  This was absolutely a “Get Out of Jail” card of the highest order!!  Now I could honestly look both boys in the face when I explained to them that she had ran away (insert fist pump and self-inflicted high five here)!!!  The peace that existed in our urine-stained dwelling was beyond nirvana.  It was more like paradise.  We quickly found a donee for the remnant dog food and dog accessories.  We opened the windows and began digging through our junk drawer for our favorite carpet cleaner’s business card.  I felt like I had been given new life. 

For those of you taking notes at home – new life usually lasts no more than two years.  Enter my wife’s approaching birthday.  She, of course, already had everything she could ever want and really needed nothing for her birthday except for ……….. “well, it’s silly.” 

Ken:  “What?” 
Spouse:  “Oh nothing.”
Ken:  “Come on.  Tell Me”
Spouse: “Okay.  I really want a….. a dog (sheepishly spoken as she was hastily putting on her bullet-proof jacket the wrong way)”
Ken:  “Can you believe the Rangers have failed to make the post-season again?”

I stopped what I was doing, helped her put the jacket on the right way and slowly began to reason with her. 
I explained that I only had a few more months to live and that maybe we should go to one of those free, high-pressure sales getaways and buy a time share condo instead.  They’re much more pleasant.  She straightened up and reestablished her position of wanting another pet.  I thought for a moment and tried to direct the discussion toward a compromise – fish.  She acted like I had been speaking to her while communicating through a bad cell tower.  All I could hear was her blinking.  I said “No” and ran out the front door to see if I could catch the Greyhound bus that was driving by that said “Paradise” on the front.  I did this so that she could honestly explain later to the boys that “Daddy just ran away” without having to lie to them again.

Several days went by and my cell phone rang at work.  My youngest son was excited to talk to me – the first clue of impending danger.  He had apparently found a stray dog that wasn’t foaming at the mouth (yet) and he wanted to keep him.  Apparently, he and a few of the neighborhood kids in his Jr. Cript gang had been harboring a fugitive in our garage for the last several hours as the dog catcher was circling the neighborhoods repeatedly looking for the perpetrator.  I’m not sure where my tax dollars for City employee training is going but I’m pretty sure if you see six or more kids standing around with their hands behind their backs, whistling and avoiding eye contact – you might want to get out of your vehicle and INVESTIGATE!!!! 

The helicopter thumping subsided, the sirens and searchlights stopped.  All that was left was a brown and black dog in an orange jumpsuit in my garage furiously working a hacksaw on his cuffs when I drove home from work that evening.  I intentionally avoided eye contact with the creature (a life skill attainted in my former line of work as a part-time Green Beret).  When I did address him, I made the Jedi hand gesture to use the Force on him to inform him that “these are not the Masters you are searching for.”  He abruptly licked himself in an area I care not to mention at this point in the retelling.  When he resurfaced several minutes later, he began to follow us into the house in an eerily calm fashion, as if he had been inside a home before.  My youngest son swore on my grave as I held him up against the wall forcing his eyes into the glare of the spotlight that he had not let him into the house before to tarnish the “driven snow” appearance of our carpet.  

I removed the handcuffs from my son and put the Taser back in its holster, slowly entering the back door to our house.  For some unknown reason, probably related to job stress, I allowed the animal to enter our house without a diaper draping his furry carcass.  He walked with a casual gait and a sense of purpose.  I just knew that he was taking in the layout and gathering information for a future ransacking of our home when we were away on a long-term mission trip!!  He slowly lay down and placed his head gently between his paws.  This was an obvious strategy – to lull us into close proximity from his lazy posture then leap up, maul us and rip out our jugulars.  From here he would logon to our family lap top, hack our accounts and steal all of our unsecured debt as our lifeless bodies bled out the last of our hemoglobin.  Suddenly his head rose up and I covered my neck and lower legs instinctively in preparation of the impending attack.  He yawned and laid his head back down.

He kept up this act for hours until he eventually got up and slowly walked to the back door.  He used his nose on our blinds to make a foreign metallic clanking, something Noel had never heard nor produced ever.  He acted as if he wanted to use the restroom outdoors.  I had never seen such a performance.  My youngest son took the initiative of opening the door and the furry foreigner sauntered out the backdoor to casually pee on my fence.  I turned my head and cried.  He had passed the pee test - the one test that no other animal had ever dared attempt in this home.

As the sun began to set, my youngest offspring mustered up the courage to request that we let this monster stay the night inside and sleep with them on the floor.  Friday nights usually meant the boys would sleep on the front room floor and fall asleep watching “Frontline” reruns.  A calm feeling came over me again, probably from the medication, and I allowed the interspecies sleepover to take place on my carpet.

I awoke the next morning to find the animal sitting at our breakfast table drinking a cup of freshly brewed coffee and reading the Dallas Morning News.  We had brief small talk as I waited for the coffee to kick in.  We spent the rest of the morning discussing what George Bush should be able to accomplish in his second term even though most critics thought that “Lame Duck” presidents were less motivated to push social agendas.

The beast had morphed into our family – a family with rules.  The beast had become our family pet.  The pet became known as Buddy.  My youngest had generically named him this because he answered to it as they were protecting him from local authorities.  My son could have called him “Oozing Neck Wound” and he would have answered given the circumstances, but we kept the “Buddy” alias just the same.  A former co-worker and good friend commented that our family has a history of naming their pets after co-workers.  Acting offended, I succinctly responded “Nut – uh!!”  She had no response.  The name of my boss at the time was Buddy.  I couldn’t figure out where she was going with her line of questioning, so I left it alone. 
She quickly called Noelle at my old job and filled her in on what was happening at our house.

Buddy (not my boss) is now part of our family.  He sheds at a remarkable level and I don’t notice any change in my blood pressure.  His stellar impression of a dog on lithium is amazing.  He does it almost continuously.  He sleeps a lot and has to spend a lot of time by himself.  We are a busy family and many times he becomes an afterthought with respect to the activity calendar.  We are convinced that he has chronic depression what with the obvious symptoms:  can’t get motivated, can’t do more than sleep all day, can’t hold down a job, watches an inordinate amount of daytime television, dry mouth, cramping, nosebleeds, headaches, dizziness, muscle aches, itchy eyes, dry skin, etc.

We love Buddy and he loves us for some strange reason.  He is a kept dog.  He could have run away but I think he tried that before and maybe regrets the results of being on the lamb.  In fact, we are sure he was someone’s dog because he is trained in several areas.  He rarely barks.  He knows how to ride in a car without throwing up.  He has successfully killed and mounted the following game:  corn snake, grackle (2X), large rat, an opossum (almost), the elusive and annoying squirrel and some other bird that was unrecognizable to the next of kin.  Buddy is a gentle killer, yet a protector of his family. 

The change of heart towards Buddy was pretty amazing to me.  I grew up with dogs and never wanted another one, to be quite honest.  They take time, they bark, they make messes and they bark.  They tie you down and complicate your schedule.  I was the last guy I thought would ever own a dog, much less love the thing.  I’m also the guy who was probably never going to get married or have kids or maintain gainful employment or blog.  Life and time changes you – whether you want it to or not.  I look at a lot of things with much less zeal these days.  Maybe it’s like the joke about life resembling a roll of toilet paper – the closer you get to the end, the faster it goes.  Or maybe it’s where you are in your ability to let things go.  Or maybe it’s God’s timing. 

The evolution of our spiritual walk is a magical thing – much better than Buddy’s dog impression talents.  God is very subtle in His formation of our lives.  Even His rebukes are difficult to hear or see sometimes if we’re not paying attention.  Quick word of advice:  start paying attention.  When He has to raise His voice, you’ll never forget it!!  What’s even better?  Asking Him what we need to change, let go of, apologize for or ask forgiveness for.  God loves proactive believers!!  God loves to see us evolve into Christ like children.  He loves to hear us when we are still enough to ask.  He loves us to gently lay our heads against him and relax.  He loves us to be obedient, to rub our noses against the backdoor instead of being lazy and making messes around ourselves and others.  He loves to watch us play and protect those around us.  He loves to take walks with us.  And many times He likes to challenge us with silence so that we can think and consider our circumstances instead of Him giving us every answer on demand. 

God’s timing is perfect, especially with Buddy.  I later found out that my wife was secretly praying for a dog for her birthday.  She wanted a puppy, a chocolate lab to be more precise.  God gave us a wire terrier mix.  He gave us a dog that was 2-3 years old already.  He gave us a dog that was ready for us.  I never chided my wife for praying behind my back, and I never will.  He brought us a gift and a family member and I am so grateful.  The life that was sucked out of the family from our hasty decisions was replaced with real “life” when we involved God in our tiniest of decisions.  Give it a shot!! 

Woof,

-- The Guy with the Distracted Mind