Thursday, February 28, 2008

"Old age means realizing you will never own all the dogs you wanted to." ~ Joe Gores

One of my sweet husband's dreams has always been to be owned by a dog. Ironically, it was one of my husband's nightmares that brought Chief into our lives.
J swears he doesn't dream when he sleeps, but once in a while he will remember a scrap or two from a dream. This one was a bad dream -- the quick and dirty version: J's out of town, I'm home alone. Someone breaks into our house. I'm okay, but the next day (in the dream) we get a dog and put in a fence. Fast forward to today, two weeks after his nightmare, and we have a 9 month old Belgian Malinois named Chief. The fence is due to be installed next week. What can I say? My man knows how to make things happen.
We first met Chief on Saturday, 2/23. He was not the first dog we looked at, but Chief was the one who looked at us. A great guy named Ed brought three dogs out to our home to demonstrate their training and obedience. Dutchess, the German Shepherd was beautiful and so disciplined. A sure bet in my mind. At first. Then, we met Chief. My first reaction to seeing him in my kitchen was, "Oh my, it's Chief." That's what I thought and said, and in my mind I meant Chief's the one. Within minutes, I knew if we were to have a dog, Chief would fit. I wasn't sure of my husband's opinion, but then I looked at his face. A kid at Christmas, that's all I'll say.
It wasn't Chief's quick obedience to his trainer and impressive pedigree that landed him in our home. He snoodled up to me that morning, leaning and rubbing up against me like our sweatly departed cat, Hobbes. I wanted to cry, and did later in the day, missing Hobbes and feeling like I was somehow betraying his memory. But it was because I missed him so that I opened the door to my heart to allow inside this 70 lb. lumbering puppy who wears furry pajamas and loves dog treats.

2 comments:

Dinahsoar said...

Chief looks adorable in his picture...like a real sweetie pie...

I know you miss Hobbes..you always will...but somehow the heart always expands to make room for one more love, especially the furry kind...

Chief will enrich your life, give it a new chapter and bring you tons of joy while being your protector...all in furry jammies and with sweet licks and doggy kisses.

Robin said...

Okay - so nicknames for my Nephdog:
Chief-meister
Chief-O-Rama
Chief-tatorship
Chief-inator
Chief-o-Chucka-Chief
Chief-ville
Chief-Furry-Hiney
I could go on, but you get the picture . . . if I write a song about him, I'll post it here.

Loved the pictures of you and Chief. I really liked how it looked like he was grinning. I'm pretty sure that's because you and J told him all about his fantastic Aunt Robin. I also hope you warned him - if I like him too much, I might just load him in the car to go for a permanent ride to TN. JUST KIDDING!!!!! Travis gets a little edgy when I talk about giving homes to already-owned animals. He seems to think the owners might get a tad upset with that. Whatever.

So are you loving the doggie breath yet? That's one of my favorite things about my critters. The bad breath. When you go to kiss 'em (hey, yeah, I do kiss 'em on the lips. anyone got a problem with that?) and they've just yawned, there's nothing sweeter than their rot breath. Just lets you know they're alive and lovin' ya!

I completely understand the Hobbes void. It's been over a year with my Snuggies, and I still break down for a good cry every now and then. But it gets better with time. Now I'm able to laugh hysterically over her antics. She was a scream. Had the best sense of humor and loved to use it on me. I also learned life-long lessons from her for which I'll always be indebted. Hang in there, sister.

So how goes the continued training with Chief? We were working on training last night with Barney and Ellie. They were being bed hogs, so I ordered them to move around to make more room for me. They decided to practice their "don't move!" command skills. I'm proud to say they completely ignored my commands to make room and did, indeed, follow through the "don't move" command by lying extremely still and staying exactly where they were. Good dogs! We're so proud.

If you get a chance to get some pictures of Chief training, I'd love to see them. He's beautiful, and I imagine even more beautiful in action.

Speaking of dogs, it's early morning and I have a couple on my hands that need to take care of wees and doos . . . .off we go.