We got our dog, Boomer, when he was one year old. It wasn’t a name we would have chosen, but it suits him pretty well; and we didn’t want to confuse him, so we kept the name, and we’ve been calling him Boomer since Christmas.
Today I dug up his vet records so I could get his license. Turns out . . .
I guess I’ll go git it engraved on his colla.
Well, dog #2 is home with the Fishers. As I write, Boomer is happy and contented, hasn’t ripped anyone’s throat out, dashed in front of an oncoming truck, or swallowed the dining room whole. He is just placidly trundling around the house, mildly observing the kids as they hurl their bodies at him. He is a one-year-old brindle English Mastiff, and was raised with three little kids and another English Mastiff. His dog pal was older and died, and that’s why he needed a new home: he was just lonely while his people were away all day.
1. He came with an electric fence system, which is wonderful and amazing. These always sounded barbaric to me. I was imagining a paranoid, cringing animal getting zapped constantly; but actually, it’s no big deal. We plugged in the central unit in the hallway near the back door and set the perimeter size. When he wants to go out, we put the special collar on, and off he goes. It buzzes and beeps to warn him that he’s getting too close to the perimeter, so he just goes, “Nope” and turns around. So far, so good! I still get nervous when I see him bounding toward the road, but he stops when he gets to the boundary.
2. His head is e-nor-mous.
It’s just begging for a derby, or possibly — what do you call it, one of those squashy hats that urchins selling newspapers would wear.
3. Probably we wouldn’t have chosen the name “Boomer,” although it does suit his ponderous ways. I just can’t shake the memory of a Florence King essay which featured a lesbian and her large and hearty partner named, you guessed it, Boomer. Oh well, it’ll pass.
4. The kids keep saying in a wondering voice, “He’s not biting me at all!” Although they loved Shane, we just could not break him of mouthing on the kids. He just couldn’t get it through his head that we didn’t want to be chewed on. He thought it was hilarious, even when he drew blood, and it was a constant, serious aggravation for all of us; and honestly, some days, I felt like there was an enemy living in our house. It’s very hard to be good to an animal who is hurting your kids, even if it’s minor and unintentional. So Boomer’s non-bitey ways are a big, big, BIG big big relief. Boomer is older, he’s fixed, and he’s just not a spaz. He doesn’t even try to steal the baby’s food. We got to eat dinner without (a) having our food stolen or (b) hearing whining and screaming and frantic pawing at the door the entire time we were eating. It’s kind of like paradise.
Watching Curious George with his best friends in the whole world (a.k.a. some kids he met less than 24 hours ago)
5. I couldn’t figure out what he reminds me of, but it suddenly hit me: a heraldic lion. Or, a Samurai mask. Or something on a totem pole from the Pacific Northwest. Or, I don’t know what! I guess he just looks like a dog. Benny (age 2) saw him and said, “A bear!” There is something almost stylized about him — maybe because he is so ridiculously muscular, but he doesn’t actually do anything. He will charge around for a while outside and make some noise, but then he wants to come in and sit on his blankie. Yeah, kind of like this:
PIC Ferdinand smelling flowers
He also has these completely gratuitous stripes, where are clearly only there to make him fancy. (Actually, they make him almost invisible in the woods. Very tricky!)
6. The only thing is, he’s spent most of his life on a rural country road,where it was kind of a big deal if a car goes by, and it was totally appropriate to bark your fool head off to warn everybody. We, on the other hand, live on a highway. A rather busy highway. So, you see where this leaves us all. But it’s okay, because we’re not constantly getting bitten. It’s amazing how much grace that buys you.
7. Sorry there aren’t more pictures. Here is another picture of Ferdinand:
PIC
So there you have it! Dog dog dog. Don’t forget to check out everyone else’s 7 Quick Takes – and say a quick prayer for Jennifer, who is sick and not up to writing her own quick takes.
. . . you have about 24 hours.
Oh dear, here is the story. No, we’re not going to have two dogs. Poor dear Shane of happy memory had a glorious but short life with us. Here is what happened: A couple of weeks ago, it was snowing, which always made Shane go completely bonkers with glee. Someone opened the door, he shot past them, got hysterical because of the snow, and ran right out into the road.
It only took one car. He was hit hard. Many broken bones, many internal injuries. They carried him inside and called the vet, but you could see that there was no hope. My husband and older son stayed with him and said good bye and thank you for being a good dog, and they put the poor boy to sleep.
Shane was a good dog. He was not smart. He learned almost nothing beyond the basics. But he loved the kids with all his doggy heart. When he was just a baby, we took him to the beach. One of the kids put Benny in a floating tube. Shane was terrified of water — didn’t even want to get his paws damp — but when he saw what he thought was his baby floating away, in he went. (Of course he ended up tipping her over and getting everyone soaked, but he meant well.) Here is Shane at the beach when he was just little:
and here is Shane having a wonderful day afternoon in a safe spot out in the woods, off the leash:
taking a break from zooming around, and laughing his head off, on the inside:
You see, a happy life. I was not able to tell the kids that dogs just disappear from existence once they die. I just couldn’t do it. I know animals don’t have immortal souls. But they have something. Shane was someone, not something.
It was a hard few weeks, after he died. Once the shock wore off, we talked a little bit about another dog, maybe a smaller one this time. Our house is not big, and we were constantly tripping over Shane. We thought it would be smarter to scale it down, and look for a more sensible kind of breed.
Then this guy turned up:
PIC mastiff in red wagon
This is not the actual dog, but it looks just like him. Here is another dog of the same breed:
PIC mastiff in back seat
The one we met is one year old, a brindle English Mastiff. He grew up with three little kids and another mastiff; but his dog pal died, and now he’s lonely all day. He is like a slow-moving armchair, and lets the kids treat him like a jungle gym. Damien and I went to meet him, and he seemed pretty much like our dog. His paws are the size of candlepin bowling balls, and he will be growing for another two years. I know, I know.
Anyway, here is a bit about his temperament. We will be picking him up — well, not “picking him up,” but getting him, on the day after Christmas. He goes by “Boomer.” He drools and farts and snores, and is completely ready to love you forever, unless you maybe might be going to hurt the family, in which case he will sit on you.
I know, I know.
Weh-heh-hell, it was bound to happen. As I mentioned, we got a puppy a few months ago, and have spent the summer training him. This morning on our front porch, we found a copy of a children’s book called Orville: A Dog Story. Written inside the cover was this note:
Here is a wonderful story of a dog, passed on to you with love.
When you are done reading about Orville, you may keep the book or pass it on to someone else.
From a friendly stranger
The book is about a dog who has had a bunch of different owners, all of whom had hearts of stone and did not understand dogs. An excerpt:
There had been other people, too, whose smells gave their whole lives away, but he had left them. There were some things he remembered (a leaky doghouse at the edge of a muddy yard, a little girl who carried a one-eyed doll), but mostly he tried to forget.
Everywhere he had ever lived involved a chain, and he had broken every one, and there were six spots on his neck where hair didn’t grow because the chains had rubbed it off.
Things just get worse from there for this canine David Copperfield, this furry Ivan Denisovich, this four-footed, slobbering, kibble-munching Job. His new owners chain him up in the mud, giving him little more than straw and ice for sustenance.
Night after night, Orville thought about the world, and all his sadness turned angry. He knew about the broken hearts of people, and how they failed to love and do right, and knowing what he knew just made him want to bark. He took to barking.
I kinda skimmed the rest, but after that I guess he eventually meets some orphan named Sally who has blonde curls and is just as lonely as he is, and they find solace with each other, and nobody even needs to be chained up ever again, because when there is love and understanding, there are no chains . . .
and if Orville had found a harmonica
(N.B.: This is still a dog we’re talking about.)
and if he’d known what a harmonica was, he would have picked it up and given it a toot, just like that.
Just like that, indeed. If someone had given our dog a harmonica, he would have gobbled it up and then frantically galloped around the yard with a musical butt for the next week, just like that. But that’s neither here nor there.
Why, you may ask, did someone give us this book? What crimes against doghood did we commit, to earn this gentle rebuke, with the nice pictures for kids, like this one:
We racked our brains, and this is what we came up with:
Sometimes we tie him up. On a sixty-foot lead, with a trolley. For ten minutes or less, by the clock. We do this when he is in one of those moods where he is so wildly in love with us that he just can’t help devouring us. We feel that it’s important to instill a strict No-Devouring policy in him now, while he is still only about forty pounds of exuberant muscle, because within a year, he will be tall enough to eat off the top of the refrigerator. Did I mention that he is half German Shepherd, half Great Dane? Did I mention that he spends 25% of his life sleeping on the couch, 25% of his life eating the baby’s food while she laughs and tries to lick him, 25% of his life pooping or watching someone else clean up his poop, 24% of his life playing wild chasing and wrestling and tickling games with nine children who adore him, and 1% of his life tied up?
Anyway, back to our cruelty. When he’s tied up for five or ten minutes by the clock, he barks for a while, then he lies down. We peek out the window to see if he’s learned his lesson, and then we rush out and shout, “WHO’S A GOOD DOG? ARE YOU A GOOD DOG?” and hug him we give him a bacon-flavored treat.
Diabolical, isn’t it?
Well, I’ll tell you, we’ve learned our lesson. I’m never going to tie up our precious pup again. If he decides he wants to chew on our faces, we’re going to let him, becauselove!!!1! We are also planning on buying the poor guy his own harmonica, because you have to admit, that would be entertaining.
Also, I’m going to take our benevolent stranger’s advice and pass the book along. Who wants it? Tell me your most irritating or outrageous “interfering stranger” story in the comment box, and the best one wins a slightly chewed-up copy of Orville: The Dog Who Loved Too Much.
And this is the expurgated version.
I couldn’t quite bring myself to crap up the Register even further with personal pictures, but I can bring myself to do it here!
Here is our first look at the puppy, who is eight weeks old, and his name is Shane (yes, as in “Shane! Shane! Come back!”):
Here he is in the back seat, wondering who the hell we are, where his mommy went, and why we didn’t think to borrow a cage or crate for a three-hour ride, especially if the car is going to make horrible jerking movements and a grinding noise and smoke is going to billow out from the hood:
and here is my husband and the puppy on the side of the road, thinking about transmissions, and life and stuff:
Here I am after our thunderstormery walk down the highway, just starting to realize the gravity of our situation:
And here is the inside of my brain when my husband told me how much transmissions cost:
and here we are having a slightly illegal public aperitif before I sent him back for some food that was not corn nuts:
and here is how things stood the very next day:
Sunny and happy, more or less. Nobody has slept in four days and our house smells like pee, but PUPPYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!
It’s a long story, but the basic principle is, “If you’re gonna do something stupid, go big.” So we have an appointment to drive three hours and pick up a nice little puppy who happens to be a Great Dane/German Shepherd mix. I have zero experience with dogs, but my husband has owned tons of them. So I know he’ll have this guy completely under control in no time, no matter how big he gets.
” . . . and once you and I get ‘fetch’ down pat, I’m gonna train Mama how to use Photoshop, because this is just embarrassing.”
While we’re waiting for this little guy to be weaned, we’re thinking of names. All the kids except the baby (so that’s ages 4 to 15) contributed ideas. Here is our list, which may or may not be funny to anyone outside the family:
I feel like, no matter what we officially choose, it’s going to be Captain Bananas.
