Me and My Shadow
Am I the only person who owns a dumb dog?
It all started out when a friend of mine bought a beautiful, lovable female golden retriever (I’ll call her Easy) whose mother had been a champion show dog. She could hardly wait for Easy to grow up and fall in love with a male golden retriever, the goal being to produce nine or ten little golden retrievers worth approximately $1,000 each.
My friend knows a lot about dogs, and she was sure Easy was going to be a great pet and a wonderful mother. What she didn’t know, however, was that Easy was, well, easy. In fact, the very week my friend began searching for the perfect male golden retriever to present to Easy, Easy snuck out of the house and (there is no delicate way to put this) she took a lover.
One night my friend came home from work and found an obese black Labrador retriever (I’ll call him Lucky) sound asleep on the front porch. Noticing that Lucky had a big smile on his face and suspecting the worst, she yelled and screamed until Lucky finally staggered to his feet and waddled off into the night.
My friend lectured Easy like never before but convinced that it had been just a one-night-stand, she chalked the whole unseemly incident up to youthful indiscretion and began hoping against hope that nothing had really happened.
No such luck.
It wasn’t long before Easy gave birth to nine cute, furry little puppies, four girls and five boys. Unfortunately, all of them were jet black and the spitting image of Lucky. My friend was beside herself. What was she going to do with nine puppies, none of which could possibly be passed off as a $1,000 golden retriever? She needed someone to help her come up with a plan. “Daryl,” she pleaded, “you gotta come over to the house and see these sweet little guys.”
My kids named her Shadow and they fell in love with her the moment I walked in the front door with her. She was the biggest female in the litter, but my friend assured me the cute little thing would only grow into a `medium-sized dog’.
The first thing Shadow needed was a doghouse. I priced a few and found that a nice one cost slightly less than a one-room addition to my house. So, I decided to build my own. Those who know me well thought this to be strange behavior indeed, since I can’t even put a model airplane together. But I, too, was under Shadow’s charming spell, and building her a cozy little home with my own hands seemed like the loving thing to do.
I was extremely proud of the doghouse I built for Shadow, and when she refused to have anything to do with it, I admit I took it personally. I wasn’t sure if it was the
original design, the two-tone paint job, or the fact that the opening was too large, but she absolutely refused to go inside the thing. We tried pushing her in, going in ourselves and calling her, and even throwing the best doggie treats imaginable inside for her to eat. With winter coming on, I assured my kids that sooner or later, every dog was smart enough to come in out of the rain.
Not Shadow. And one night of pouring rain was all it took for my daughter to suggest that I ought to be turned over to the Humane Society. She immediately got in the car and went over to the Wild West Feed Store in search of professional advice.
“Dad,” my daughter informed me when she returned, “Shadow is claustrophobic.
“Right,” I replied.
“Really, Dad. The guy at the feed store said dogs can be claustrophobic just like people. He suggested you build her a lean-to.”
I assured my daughter that building a lean-to was way beyond my carpentry skills, but I did agree to let Shadow stay inside our fenced patio, even though it housed the new grass and flowers I had just planted.
It took Shadow slightly less than a week to turn my backyard into a moonscape. She absolutely loved the taste of the newly planted flowers, showing a marked preference for my expensive new camellia bushes.
I gathered the kids together and informed them that Shadow wasn’t exactly working out and that it would probably be best for everyone concerned if we found her a nice new home. They then informed me that if the choice was between me and Shadow, I should be the one to leave. Ignoring their advice, I put an ad in the paper and much to my surprise, found a nice elderly lady who used to train dogs. She was sure all of Shadow’s problems would quickly disappear under her expert guidance. So, with the kids threatening never to speak to me again, I took Shadow over to her spacious new home, got a big lick goodbye, and swore to myself that I would never own a dog again.
Two weeks later, the nice elderly lady called and said, “I can’t get that stupid dog of yours to stop digging holes in my yard and she keeps jumping up and knocking all my friends down. I’m taking her to the pound!”
To make a long story short, Shadow, for better or worse, is back where she belongs. She has her own interestingly constructed lean-to and the full run of the backyard. She’s getting better about eating the plants and I’ve even noticed that some of the grass is beginning to grow back. She’s grown into a 90-pound `medium-sized’ dog and eats at least $30 of dog food each week, but it’s only money, right? I take her on a daily `drag’ and I’m in better shape because of it. She loves water (mud, actually) and just recently my daughter took her down to the river, only to discover that Shadow is the only golden/Labrador retriever I’ve ever heard of who can’t swim. She seems to enjoy jumping into the river, but within minutes, two or three people have to dive in and pull her to safety. And last week, she also somehow managed to get herself a ticket (I didn’t even know such a thing was possible) for barking too loud at the mailman.
Anyway, Shadow loves the kids, and the kids love Shadow. I’ve also learned something about myself. Actually, it was explained to me by my beloved wife, and it goes something like this: There are no dumb dogs …just dumb dog owners.