Save This Dog
by Dave in Texas


(I wrote this in April of 2006. I thought I would bring it back, and add a year’s worth of “what have I learned since”? Or, said differently, “Did you kill him”?)

They got him when I was out of town. Phoned it in. Daddy, we got a puppy.

A beagle.

An effin Beagle. They named him “Moses” in a pathetic attempt to amplify his cute-factor and somehow spare his life. Their duplicity was transparent to me.

He has chewed through, oh let's see, three places in the sofa, about a thousand rolls of toilet paper, 5 chair legs, every sprinkler control cover (AND the wiring), my last briefcase, most of the door trim on the back door, one of my dress shoes, 5 DVDs, 7 pillows, and 3 belts. He barks incessantly at squirrels, which frankly I can't give him too much grief over but shut the hell up already. He will always leap up on my bed when I'm not around to tell him not to, and he always come sucking up all apologetically when I yell at him to get his furry ass OFF the bed. He is a relationship abuser. I figure so far he's been about a $3400 problem, but he's on his game and he's not done.

I do not expect much of a return on my investment. Actually, I think I'm about to write him off and take my loss like a man. And you know what that means. He's about to join the choir invisible. His metabolic processes are about to cease.

You can save this dog. You know you want to. Just look at him. He isn't a bad dog. He's a kid. With a dog crack habit or something, hell I don't know what's wrong with him. If I did I would have fixed it already. So it's desperate measure time. He's going to die. He is and that's that.

Unless you step in. You can intervene. You can save him. I will pay you, ok, pretty much whatever you want up to my damages, and shipping, just to take him off my hands. I'll tell everybody here he ran away. That's plausible, given his "oh look, the door's open" behavior, hell we spent an hour coaxing him back last time. And given the damages, and the money spent, I'm sure I can convince the fam we can't do this again.

life%20is%20good.JPGOtherwise, it's a bullet to the head. Those of you who know me and squirrels, know I'm capable of it. So what do you say? I'll give you a week. He's a goner after that. I mean, he's got his moments, but I can't take it anymore. You can though, he's much better than he was and I'm just bitter about the past. Save him. You know you want to.

That was then, this is now.

Well, I didn’t kill him, but neither did I get any takers. Oh there were lots of “how could you”? pleas and “don’t you dare”! But no one was stupid sympathetic enough to actually let me pay them to take him off of my hands.

I ain’t exactly the dog-whisperer or anything, but I did learn a few tricks. We worked on some of the worst habits and let the others go. Some he let go of himself.

Some time back I theorized if puppies weren’t cute, they wouldn’t live very long. My corollary is “as they age, they get better which is a good thing for them cause the cuteness factor is waning.

His two worst habits were chewing on things he shouldn’t, and jumping up on people. The rest we could live with. Outside you just have to watch them, they are hunters and when they drop into the zone, it’s hard to get their attention (a friend tells me when outside, the only thought going on in a beagle’s brain is “what’s that smell”?

With a little diligence we taught him the things he could chew on and the things he couldn’t.

On the jumping thing. He got bored with us rather soon in the relationship, so it wasn’t a big deal for us, he just tired of it and that was that. You could tell him to get down and he would. Guests however, different story. No one is happier to see you pay us a visit than Moses, and he will be all over your ass.

Until the sock.

Someone who was really concerned that I was going to kill this damn dog sent me an email, with a technique for curing the jumping thing. “Roll up a sock, and put a rubber band around it. When he jumps up on you, throw the sock right at his head and say “no!” in a firm, command voice. Dogs hate having things thrown at their heads, and he will jump down instantly”.

Well no shit they hate having things thrown at their heads… I already knew that from the hair brushes. Lucky for him I only winged him a couple of times.

Anyway, I guess we’re gonna be all right. He is a relationship-abuser, but no worse than a cat I suppose. Not much of a compliment buddy, but there it is. And there are some moments of entertainment. My favorite is when you come to pay me a visit, I say “welcome” and I hand you a cold beer and a rolled up sock.

“Ok” I say, “here’s the thing about the sock”.

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Comments

So true about the beagle's brain. I have a coonhound and he's the same way. "What's that smell?" "Splinter come here!" "What's that smell?" "Splinter--get your ass over here!" "What's the smell?"

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Cats are sneaky. Had an argument with one of mine a couple of years back about who my bed belonged to. Cat would pee on it to mark it as his. Not amusing. But I won the 'pissing contest' the day I drenched the mattress with gardenia oil before I put yet another set of fresh sheets on it. Score one for the humans!

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