Dog Pack

Abby Sniffing Phoebe

In the last summer I was in NJ, my cousin moved in with my mom for a few months. Her marriage had ended, and she needed to square up some things until she found a new place to live. She brought along with her two dogs, Phoebe and Gabby. Phoebe was a Saluki mix. She was fun to watch and had a rare combination of speed and endurance. She was probably the fastest dog I’ve seen other than the greyhounds at the dog-track. She could also hang with me on a 3mi run in the middle of summer without any ill effects from the heat. She was a sweet dog, but not very bright.


Gabby, on the other hand, had no redeeming qualities and was dumb, disruptive and destructive. She agitated the other dogs resulting in their snapping at her and flashing their teeth at her. Gabby also chewed on furniture and rugs. My cousin eventually moved to an apartment that didn’t take dogs so Phoebe and Gabby stayed behind.

I found that one dog is not enough. Unless one spends time with the dog almost all day, then the dog will become lonely and will need a second dog for companionship. Two dogs are just right. They keep each other company yet the dynamics between them doesn’t distract them from being pets and companions to the owner. With three dogs, things start to get a little complicated. The dogs start to jockey for position in the pack and continually challenge each other. Things are still manageable, but the dogs start to lose themselves in the pack and spend less time with the owner.

When we had five dogs, things were nuts. There was confusion everywhere. Andy and Phoebe were in competition for the bally in games of fetch. Abby kept trying to assert herself as the alpha. Often she would do this by humping the other dogs. It got to the point where she tried to hump my leg a few times. I had to give her a spank for that. Not a big spank, but just a little one.

Meanwhile, Gabby was running around snipping at the other dogs and causing a few fights to erupt. Normally Gabby could quell the fight by lying prone on her back completely submissive to whoever she was bothering.

Father reverted back to a state of confusion. He grew agitated and snipped and snarled at everything that moved his way. This situation was untenable. We had to thin the pack. We put an ad in the paper to give away Gabby. Thankfully, a retired couple adopted her. It would have been an assured death if we had dropped Gabby off at the animal shelter.

Our younger cousin took Phoebe in. I hated to see Phoebe go, and had I no dogs, she would have been a wonderful companion. She was sweet, loyal and athletic. She was a fun dog, but in this situation, she was not a good fit. I was able to see Phoebe from time to time. She took well at my cousin’s and grew to love her.

I have no idea what happened to Gabby after she was adopted. I couldn’t stand that little shit.

Bad to the Bone

In the first or second winter I was in NJ, an incident happened when my brother took the babies out front to play. My brother was not aware of Father’s hostilities or at least the extent of them. Father could fight and kill, and he did not like Andy that much. It was a constant battle keeping Father from going at Andy. Inside, Father would never try anything on Andy, but out front, Father would get a little confused with all of the commotion and activity and would revert to his feral ways. When Father was on his own for who knows how long, he fighting and killing was a way of life for him—it was a necessity.




Once in a while, he would snap at Andy, but I became keen of the events that would trigger Father’s abrupt anger and ward off any danger. Normally, all it took was a firm admonishment from me, and Father would almost always back off. Father always recognized me as the ‘alpha’ and never challenged me or show any signs of confrontation with me.



My brother, however, did not know how mean Father could be. Well, during Christmas break, my brother took them out front, much to the baby’s’ delight. I didn’t see what triggered the event because I think I had gone back to NJ to work. I didn’t get much vacation time at Hoechst-Marion-Rousell. Anyway, something triggered Father, and since no one was there who would have recognized an imminent danger, Father let out his anger and bit Andy in the leg. My poor baby was bitten all the way to the bone, the vet sad. I felt so awful for him. Andy has always been such a sweet dog, and it broke my heart to see someone being mean to him. Andy’s leg healed but who knows what kind of psychological impact it had on him. He always had tendencies for neurosis and this didn’t help.

Orchestrating Playtime for the Babies

By the time Andy was a year old, routines were established such as where, when and how they played. Playing out front could be especially challenging. Abby could be so demanding about going out front, and she would whip the others into a frenzy before we went out front. About half the time we went out front, the babies would chase a squirrel eating by the bird feeder or oak tree. Unless the babies cornered the squirrel in a tree, the chase lasted a few seconds, and the rest of the time each dog did his or her own thing.




Abby stopped fetching by now. The game she played and excelled was the tugging games. If I were not around, Abby would slowly walk around and sniff the yard smelling the lingering odors of any interlopers that may have passed through the yard recently. But if I were around, Abby would find a rope and we would have our own version of tug-o-war.



Andy would play fetch. In the ten or fifteen minutes we would spend out front, Andy would retrieve a toy at least a dozen times. When he was younger, we had to keep a close eye on his activity level because his compulsion to run overrode his ability to regulate his energy and exhaustion levels. He could have easily bopped till he dropped. Sometimes his tongue would be hanging out and his face would look peaked but he would continue trying to play. We had to literally take the ball from him and make him go inside.



Then there was Father. He was always confused about playing. Was it fun? Was it life or death? He didn’t know and would become confused trying to snap at Andy once in a while. On some throws of the ball, Father would run along with Andy, but on others, he would growl at Andy and posture over him trying to assert his dominance.



After I threw a ball, I had to monitor several things at once. In my left hand was the tugging toy. Abby grab at it and we would have our tugging match. Then I had to monitor where Andy was and prepare for the next throw. Most importantly, I had to keep a close eye on Father to make sure he wouldn’t try to attack Andy. All it took to make Father back down was a directed shout at him, and he would always stand-down.



Lastly, I had to keep an eye on Andy’s exhaustion level especially when he was young. As he grew older, he did a better monitoring his activity level. He couldn’t do it in a ‘normal manner’ like Abby and Father who would simply sit down when they were tired. Andy would do what I call the ‘fly-by.’ Without any notice or warning, Andy would approach me as he had on previous throws, but instead of dropping the toy by my feet or handing it to me, he would keep the toy in his mouth and run a few feet by me and head straight towards the door. It was his way of announcing that play-time was over but in his own cute way. If the door was cracked open, he wouldn’t even wait for the rest of us to go inside with him. Instead, he would nudge the door open with his nose going inside alone. Playtime was over.

Housetraining Father

We didn’t have a hard time housetraining Father. Something I noticed about dogs is that they tend to have their ‘spots’ and are reluctant to go anywhere other than their spots. Father was particularly rigid about going to the bathroom at his favorite place. As a matter of fact, I can’t recall ever seeing him doodoo. Maybe this, too, was a result of his living in the wild and his need for discretion. One of the few times I saw when Father had defecated in the house was when I left him alone in the house for over 24 hours. He rarely defecated in the house.

I have seen him urinate but that was to mark his territory. This I saw him do quite a bit. This was also a problem for us. When a male dog marks his territory, he won’t stop doing it. He needs to constantly refresh his mark so that other dogs will know that Father is there, and that place is his domain.

Unfortunately for us, Father chose to mark the carpet in the dining room by the front window facing the street we lived on. We don’t know when Father started marking that dining room but by the time we did find out, the cumulative effect was damaging and noxious. I was down in Raleigh for a visit one summer when my mom prompted me to take a look at where Father had been peeing.

It was nasty. The carpet had a damp feel and a musky odor. Clearly the carpet had to be removed. I took out a utility knife and started cutting up the carpet into pieces. Surprisingly, once the carpet had been torn into, I could easily shred the carpet and rip it up from the floor. I completely removed the carpet from the dining room and living room in about 2 hours, all by myself.

Now comes the moment of truth. How bad was the floor damaged from where Father had been peeing for a while? It was bad. There was mildew, and the floor was permanently stained. My mom had to have the floor sanded and resurfaced. Otherwise, the floor in the remaining parts was in surprisingly good shape. After 30 years or more of carpeting, the hardwood floor underneath was in good shape except where Father had left his mark.
After the floor was redone, Father didn’t mark the dining room floor again. Another thing I noticed about dogs is that they don’t like to urinate on hardwood floors. Maybe the splattering of the pee bothers them and they prefer to piss on a carpet or rug so it can soften the landing of the stream of urine and soak up the piss. Maybe this is why people will put a rug by the commode for guys who don’t aim so well when they pee.

Quiet Eating

Another of Father’s traits from the wild appeared whenever he ate and in particular when he was hand fed by someone. When Father was hand-fed, he quietly took the food from my hand and silently ate his food and patiently waited for his next serving. Compare this to how Andy and Abby ate when hand-fed and it’s a stark contrast. Abby and Andy, when fed by hand, would move side to side and with the clicking of their nails on the hardwood floor, it sounded like they were doing a tap dance. Then when they finally got their food, they snapped their jaws shut and smacked their lips with each and every bite.

Did they put on a show, too! I didn’t think much about their eating behaviors until a few times after I had hand feed Father alone in the kitchen. Father was so discrete during these times that it took me a while to catch on to what was “not” happening. If I wanted to give Father the rest of a sandwich, I did so without and audience from the babies. However, if I hand fed Abby or Andy, they might get a bite in before the others would hear the commotion in the kitchen and tippy tip on in to see what was happening. They knew what was happening. They knew a dog was getting a tooty and they wanted to get in on the action. When the other dogs joined the feeding, this meant I had to divide the food among 3 dogs. The first one in the kitchen now had to share with the others

But not with Father. If Father were alone in the kitchen, his quiet eating never drew the attention of his fellow canines so he was able to eat a bigger portion of food. On the surface, it seems like a strange paradox that a dog living in the wild ate with more refinement than the house dogs who ate like they were raised in a barn. I suppose Father’s eating habits were a survival mechanism developed when he lived in his ‘semi-feral’ state. He had to lay low especially when he ate or else he risked drawing unwanted attention.

"What Makes You Think You Can Be a Black Hero?"

Those who like the movie I’m Gonna Get You Sucka may have recognized the quote above. It’s a great satire filled with many memorable quotes. The quote above came to mind when I was thinking about the following story about Father.
One summer afternoon on a visit back to NC in 1999, I was in the back by myself playing in the pool. My mom, Abby and Andy had all went to her bedroom to take a mid-afternoon nap which had become a ritual for my mom and the babies. Andy absolutely loved taking a nap and had come to expect it. If my mom was a little late in initiating the naptime routine, Andy would go into the hallway leading to the bedrooms and stare at my mom in a perplexed manner wondering why she hadn’t went to bed yet.

Father wasn’t an avid napper. Some days he would go but on others he wouldn’t. On this afternoon, he decided to stay outside and hang around with me. Father loved to play by the pool but not in the pool. He couldn’t swim worth a dam. The only times he did go in was when he was pushed into the water accidentally by the babies when they brushed past him on the pool ledge. Father swam with all of the grace and elegance that Frankenstein would have if he ever took a dip. It wasn’t a pretty site, but Father could make it to the steps or ladder, and I guess that is all that mattered.

Father loved to be splashed or squirted with water, and he also loved chasing toys around in the pool. On this day, I decided to tease Father, so I sunk to the bottom of the pool and laid there for a half a minute to a minute. For some reason, this drove Father nuts. He would start barking loudly in that high-pitched voice of his, and I could hear him when I was seven feet below the pool’s surface. When I resurfaced, Father was happy and let me pet and love him. On one dive, I stayed down as long as I could, possibly a minute and a half. Father barked the whole time on this dive. It was so loud and shrill that it woke my mom up, and she went into the backyard to see what all the commotion was. “What the hell is going on our here, goddamnit?” she asked. I told her that I was teasing Father and that we were playing a game.

She laughed and said that maybe Father was trying to save my life. This led me to think “Did Father try to save me?” Father was scared of going in the water and probably had an instinctual grasp that water could be hazardous, especially going underwater. Was Father barking to get someone’s attention so that they could help me in what Father perceived to be a dangerous situation?

Then I thought that Father was simply scared. He may have thought I was in trouble and was panicking since he was worried about my safety.

I can’t pinpoint what Father was barking at me for. Other than when Father first came to our house at a time he feared and hated me, Father never barked at me. I’d like to believe that Father was trying to save me by calling for help. I realize this is an anthropomorphic and sentimental viewpoint, but it’s a nice thought to have if it was really true. Even if he was panicking and scared, it is sweet to think that Father cared about me enough to be worried about my safety.

The Yellow Submarine

When I would visit home, usually I’d be home for just a weekend or possibly a long holiday weekend. Since my time home was brief, I wanted my stay to be as eventful and fun-filled as possible which meant I would buy many toys to satisfy the babies and would subsequently give us something to do. However, there were times when I was a little excessive in my toy selection and expenditures. Sometimes I would buy toys that were not in any way meant to be a dog toy but nevertheless were used for playing with dogs anyway.

A remote controlled toy submarine was an example of such overindulgence. Spurring the idea was how much fun the babies had with the remote controlled toy car from a year or two ago. If they liked a land toy of that nature, maybe an aquatic one would be just as fun and would give us some amusement while we were outside and playing in or by the pool. I can’t say for sure where we bought the toy, or even who bought the toy, my mom or me. I was worried for a couple of reasons when first getting that toy. First there was the chance it wouldn’t work that well and wouldn’t live up to the claims the advertisers made such as the toy’s diving ability. Second, I worried that the dogs would either be scared of the toy or simply be uninterested in it and therefore they wouldn’t play with it.

All of my worries were for naught. Andy was a little nervous of the toy, but Abby and Father absolutely loved it. Once Andy saw that Abby didn’t fear the toy and had so much fun playing with it, Andy, too came around and played with it as well. I was shocked that Father took an interest in the submarine.

On the “Alpha Run”, I set the toy in the pool and let it float there in place for a couple of minutes, long enough for the babies to trot to the pool’s edge and take a good look at it. Abby and Father were the first to check out this new object. Abby’s ears drooped and her brow was furrowed. Father was simply perplexed. Once they were comfortable with the object, I propelled it forward. It didn’t do fast, but it did go at a good clip. Abby’s deep booming voice went ‘woof, woof’ and Father’s high-pitched voice too sounded off. Father leaned over and grabbed at it. I had to make a quick turn to steer away from the pool’s edge or else Father would have snagged that thing. Abby also made a grab at it, but unlike Father, Abby wasn’t going to limit her attempts at getting that toy by staying on the pool ledge. Abby hustled to the concrete steps, slipped into the water and gave chase to the submarine. As noted earlier, this thing wasn’t terribly fast so Abby was able to catch up with the toy. When she did make contact with it, she bumped in to it and then tried to pick it up with her mouth.

I circled the toy around her a few times making her cry a little and frustrated. Once she was able to figure out the toy’s limits in mobility, that is when I submerged the toy. That thing could go at least 5 or 6 feet deep. I was impressed. Abby was nonplussed to say the least. Her face was worried, and she kept circling over the toy. She knew it was underneath her but she couldn’t get at it. Finally, I would surface the toy so that it would bump in to her from underneath hitting her belly. Now Abby was a little scared and started to whine. Eventually Abby got used to the toy’s submerging, surfacing and bumping in to her. It added to the fun. She would have a worried look on her face whenever that toy bumped into her belly from underneath.

Father would be watching the whole time and going haywire. I would allow the boat to get too close to the edge once in a while, and when I did this, Father would grab the sheath holding the toy’s antenna and pick up the toy and sling it around. I guess Father thought this was a little animal and wanted to kill the little rascal. I would have to shout at Father, take the toy from him and place the toy safely away from Father’s reach. The fun would continue. These games would go on for hours and hours on a weekend.

This toy was even more fun than I imagined and performed better than I had hoped. The only drawback was that the toy need over a half a dozen batteries for the submarine itself and the controller need 4-6 batteries. On top of that, the toy sucked power like a vortex so the unit needed to be recharged a couple of times on a weekend.

I loved the toy. The babies loved the toy. It was money well spent.

The Babys' Vocabulary

Here is a list of words that the babies know/knew. They were smart babies, and there were some words that they knew so well that we had to spell the word so as not to draw attention to what was going to happen or agitate them, words such as ‘play’ or ‘shower.’ I think this is an exhaustive list, but if I remember more at a later time, I will update the list accordingly. I did not include the list of nicknames I had for them. Surprisingly, the babies would respond to their nicknames as well. There were some words that were simply not uttered such as ‘vet’ or ‘veterinarian’. Going to the vet could be a challenge and we didn’t want to make the trip any worse by having them sit in torment on the way over. It was better to let them simply think they were going ‘bye bye’ and then let them figure out where they were going after it was too late for them to balk at going on the trip.

As promised, here they are.

• Abby
• Andy
• Father
• Gary
• (My mom’s name)
• (My cousin’s name)
• Front
• Play
• Pee pee
• Nighty
• Walk
• Downtown
• Bye bye
• Water
• Watey
• Sit
• Stay
• Come
• Spank
• Stop
• No
• Getty
• Toy
• Ball
• New toy
• Left (Andy)
• Right (Andy)
• Who is that?
• Get up
• Get down
• Shower
• Kissy
• Swim
• Poo poo
• Squirrel
• Nikki
• Kitty cat
• Tooty
• huggy

Front

Another tradition that I first became aware of in my first visit back to NC after moving to NJ can simply be described as ‘Front’ in which the dogs demanded that we let them out front to play even though we had a nice big fenced in yard for them to play in out in the back. This isn’t to say that they never went in the front yard when I was living in Raleigh. As a matter of fact, we often went to the front yard such as to let Abby and the others chase the squirrels. On discovering how much Abby loved chasing squirrels, I kept the bird feeders around the yard filled with bird seed which lured the squirrels to these areas. Abby came close to some squirrels once or twice but she never killed one or even hurt one but possibly scared the crap out of a few. Andy did catch up with a few squirrels but he truly didn’t know what he was doing thinking it was a game and let the little rascals off the hook as they scampered into the nearby wooded area. Father has caught and ate squirrels before but on these events when I would open the door and let Abby initiate the chase; Father would tag along to be with the group and would not be in ‘hunting mode.’ Indeed, Father would be chasing the other dogs rather than the squirrels. Poor Father could be clueless and confused at times, but the guy was having a wonderful time and just glad to be alive.

When I lived in Raleigh, we would go out front 3 or 4 times a week and but I was the one who would initiate the trips to the front yard. Often precipitating an excursion out front was a squirrel sighting at a bird feeder out there. I would agitate Abby by repeating in a shrill voice ‘See that squirrel, Baby Girl? Get it Baby Girl.’ After saying this a few times, Abby would be chomping at the bit and run to the door and wait for me to let her out. The other dogs would themselves be revved up because of Abby’s state of anxiousness. Once I had them whipped into frenzy, I would quickly open the door and watch them burst over the threshold like they were horses coming out of the gate at Churchill Downs. Off they would go to the bird feeder with the squirrel perched on top which had a couple of choices. First, it could climb high in the tree and wait it out. It could also climb up the tree, panic, jump down and scurry into the woods. Or the squirrel could immediately jump off the bird feeder and make a run for it into the woods. Whichever decision the squirrel made, Abby and the others were assured to be entertained and have fun. I must emphasize that Abby or the other dogs never caught the squirrels when these games were played. Because this play fought Abby’s boredom and helped her get some exercise, I encouraged these games.

However, at some point around the time I moved to NJ, the dogs themselves would demand to go out front. How does a dog demand to go out front? As noted before, Abby knew how to ask to be let outside. However when we would go to the side door leading to the backyard, the dogs would walk past that door and walk a few feet through the foyer to the front door. There they would stand and look up at us like ‘Open it.’ Even if I wanted them to go in the backyard and had the side door open, they refused to budge from the front door area. I would then ask them ‘Do you want to go out front?’ They responded by moving their feet in a quick manner fidgeting around, breathing hard and panting. I would open the door and out they went.

What I couldn’t understand about the babies is what was so great about the front yard in comparison to the back. Like I mentioned earlier, even if I opened the door to the backyard, once they got a notion to go out front, they refused to go in the backyard. The backyard was almost an acre of fenced in fun with a pool, hills trees and a bird feeder of its own. All the things they could do out front could be done in the back, squirrels included. However in the dwindling hours of the afternoon was when Abby would start her campaign for us to let her out front. The other dogs joined in for the fun. It was almost as if Abby could sense the day’s drawing to a close which prompted her to demand we go out front. When the sun lowered to a certain angle in the den where my mom spent most of her waking hours, the light shining in Abby’s eyes would be like a beacon luring her to go out front and play.

Chasing squirrels may have been the event starting this tradition, but later the dogs like going out front for the sake of going out front. It was a change of venue compared to the backyard, I suppose. There were most likely different smells and definitely different sites out there keeping the dogs interested in the front yard. I never had to worry about them running into the street. It never happened; not even once or at least after the ‘out front tradition’ started. Abby didn’t go to the street because of a spanking she received when she ran to the road when she was young. She learned her lesson well. Then there was the matter of Andy. He followed Abby around so if she didn’t go somewhere, then he wouldn’t go. Father wouldn’t run into the street either even though he had free run of the neighborhood. He loved hanging around us and didn’t want to miss out by gallivanting around the neighborhood.

There was a quirk about going out front. The babies demanded that someone escort them in the yard and supervise them while they were out there. Since I trusted them, sometimes I went inside once in a while such as to answer the phone or use the bathroom. Regardless, upon discovering the absence of their owners the babies would be in a small panic with looks of consternation on their faces that read ‘Where did he/she go?’ They would trot inside looking for us worried that we may no longer be there for them. For some reason, they could or would not play out front unless one of their owners was out there with them. When they found us, they would run back to the front door and give us a look that said ‘Get out.’

So, on that weekend, the first one when I came back from NJ for a visit is when I became aware of the new tradition of going out front in which the dogs demanded to go there and would no longer wait for me or my mom to ask them. I was in the den, the sun shone on Abby’s face from the late afternoon sun and Abby started barking and bouncing up and down while looking at my mom. I asked my mom what they wanted, and she said they wanted to go out front. My mom asked them ‘front?’ and this seem to hit the sweet spot for them as they dashed down the steps from the den into the foyer and to the front door. This seemed to satisfy and pacify them at the same time. Even if a squirrel wasn’t in the front yard, there was plenty enough for them to do out there to keep them entertained and busy. This tradition of going out front continues to this day despite the fact that Andy’s squirrel chasing days are long behind him.

First Trip Back to NC

I had been in NJ for a month when I made my first visit back home to NC. Our hiring bonus at Hoechst Marion Roussel was generous especially for a low-ranking scientist such as me. This package allotted money for one plane trip back to our old home which I readily used. This would be one of the few times I would fly to NC. The next time I would fly to NC would be on my interview trip three and a half years later when GSK flew me down to RTP in 2002.

My boss at HMR allowed me to leave work early so I arranged for a 5pm flight from Newark Intl. to RDU. I took off work at 2:30 and made the 40 min journey to Newark without any problems. For those who are not from the NYC metro area, a lot of bad things can happen in that area and it is so easy to get lost on the highways there which from above looks like a bowl of spaghetti the way they are knotted up and entangled. I knew of one guy who ‘thought’ he was going to Newark Intl. but took a wrong turn, ended up in a tunnel and came out somewhere in Manhattan. Another person I know who was from NM took a rental car and in an attempt to drive to central NJ, found herself in Philadelphia somewhere.

So I was thankful I made it to Newark uneventfully. I parked in a long term parking lot which is at least a mile from my terminal so I had to take a shuttle to finish my journey to the airport itself. In the meantime, I waited and watched the planes fly in. It’s amazing the flight traffic Newark handles which makes it clear that one glitch or back-up can lead to a cascade of events delaying flights for minutes and even hours. Fortunately for me, the weather was clear not only in Newark but in Chicago as well. For some reason, any delays at Newark are attributed to ‘bad weather’ in Chicago.

I only had one carry-on bag so I was able to make it through security quickly and consequently depart the airport quickly at RDU. I rented a car at RDU and drove home. The biggest difference between NJ and NC (or at least central NC) during that trip was that the leaves were still green and lush while in NJ the trees had started the Fall change. Something I noticed about NJ is that the Spring there starts later in the year than in NC and is shorter as well. However the Fall lasts longer and the leaves changing tends to be more vivid and colorful than in central NC.

While I was away a few things had changed. First my mom had bought some new furniture for her den. (This was the start of her Grand Spending Spree) She spent an overwhelming amount of time in there reading books, talking on the phone and watching TV. She loved this furniture but I thought it was a terrible choice. The couch and seats were cloth covered. Anyone with a big dog knows how hard it is to clean fabric furniture. Try as you may, it just can’t be done. The filth and grime from the dogs become a part of that fabric digging deep down into the cloth. Furthermore, the fabric is a trap for all smells, good or bad. And it seems like the bad smells trump the good ones. Also, the color of the furniture was not well thought out as far as how it would look as the furniture aged. It was a light yellow couch, but I can’t describe the pattern on the couch and seats. The most important point is the fact that light yellow doesn’t hide dirt that well, and as these items began to show wear and tear, the dirt displayed itself in an obvious manner and made the furniture dull and grungy.

As I drove up the hill, the babies could hear me, and I could see their little heads peeping through the breakfast room window which has a clear vantage point to our driveway. I got out of the car and could hear the babies barking loudly. By the time I made it to the kitchen door, the babies were there to greet me--Abby, Andy and Father. Father was hopping around. I was surprised that he was so happy to see me. Andy was happy too, but I wasn’t sure why. I’m not sure if he was happy that it was me myself that he missed. I also wondered if he was happy because of the fact that someone, anyone, was there and that he simply loved company. He could have been excited because Abby was excited. Andy almost always followed Abby’s lead and responded accordingly. By this time, Andy was over 5mos old and he had grown quite a bit. He must have been over 50lbs at that time. No longer was a lap dog. It’s always a sad moment when a larger breed dog transitions from the puppy stage to an young adult stage and can no longer sit on someone’s lap. The dog is often confused and frustrated that it can’t sit on its owner’s lap, and after a few futile attempts to do so, they get the message and no longer try to sit on their owner anymore.
I opened the kitchen door and all three dogs tried to jump up on me. I leaned over and let all three of them kissy me. Even Father gave a few quick kisses. I put down my bag, walked into the den and greeted my mom who was sitting on the couch. I sat on one of those new cloth chairs when my mom reminded me that the dogs were not allowed on the furniture. I had known about this new rule a couple of weeks ago when my mom told me on the phone. I was irritated because I knew Abby would be confused and hurt since before I left, she had free run of the house including getting up on furniture. If my mom wanted to enforce such a rule, she should have started it when Abby was a puppy and not when she was nearly 2 ½ years old. I was further irritated because of the fact that my mom chose to buy cloth covered furniture since she had three large dogs that often spent time outside and in a pool in the back.

I had no sooner sat in the chair than Abby had jumped over the chair’s armrest and climbed behind me and sat between me and the back of the chair. She stared at me mom with a look that said ‘What are you going to do about it? HE’S back and you can’t do anything to me.’ My mom fussed a little but she caved in to Abby’s scheming deviousness and let her stay on the chair. From then on, my mom gave up her ‘No dogs on the furniture’ decree and let the babies climb on the furniture whenever they wanted.

Abby’s excitement was so palpable and sweet. She knew better than to get on that chair but she was overcome with happiness of my arrival that she disregarded my mom’s orders and climbed on the chair. She wanted to be as close to me as possible and didn’t give a damn about any rules! I was home and Baby Girl was happy.

The Vortex Football

By the fall of ’97, Abby was fully mature but still growing, or should I say ‘expanding’. Abby was not shy around food and loved to eat. She was the type of dog that would keep eating until all of her food was gone which made it difficult to feed Father. Father ate only a few times a day and didn’t like an audience when he ate. Their contrasting eating styles made it hard to ensure Father was adequately fed but that Abby wasn’t overfed.

Abby also began to show signs of laziness, and her enthusiasm of the fetching games waned by then. For example one day in the front yard, Abby was sitting 20 or 30 yards from me when I threw a Frisbee at her. It was a perfect throw going within inches of her mouth. All she had to do was open her mouth and grab the Frisbee. Did she do it? No. Instead she watched the Frisbee go by her and turned her head tracking it go down the hill and saw it come to a stop, after which she looked back at me with an expression that read, “What did you expect? Don’t do that again.” And with that, the fetching games came to an end, or at least for then.
As the fall progressed and Abby’s activity level dropped since we the pool was closed, she began to put on some pounds and broke the 100 pound mark. Abby is big boned so for a dog like her, her ideal weight was around 90 pounds. It was time for me to find something, anything, to pique her interest. She bored so easily making it a challenge to keep her interested in playing. I should have taken her for walks, but by the time I arrived home, it was dark, and our neighborhood could be unsafe at times, for example one time someone threatened to shoot me one night while I was out running a mile or so from home. I should have driven Abby downtown where it was safer and quieter, but it was a ‘V-8’ moment “Wow, why didn’t I think of that!” Hindsight can be so clear at times.
My solution to keep Abby active was a toy, a Vortex football. Basically it’s a nerf football with a stem on the end which has fins on it for aerodynamics stabilizing the ball subsequently allowing the ball to be thrown for impressively far distances. In addition to this feature, the ball had a ‘whistler’ on it which would make the ball make a sound eerily similar to a bomb in those WWI movies. I swear to god it sounded like a bomb was about to go off. That whistle drove Abby and Father nuts. The first time I threw that ball, they took off after it with the greatest of enthusiasm. As a matter of fact, they never tired of that toy. On the box of the toy was a claim of how far the ball could be thrown, and in this case, it was actually a modest claim. I could throw that ball a country mile! If I could have thrown a real football that far, I would have been a QB in the NFL. One time I went to a football field at a nearby high school to measure how far I could throw it. I was able to throw that thing over 80 yards! Abby enthusiastically ran after it and brought it back.

There was something about that whistle on that ball beckoning them to play and whipping them into a tizzy. Because I could throw it so far, Abby would have to run quite a ways so after a fifteen minute session of playing with this ball, Abby had accomplished quite a work-out in these sessions. This new toy contributed to Abby’s toning down to 90 pounds over the following six months. I was proud of my Baby Girl.
The only drawbacks to this toy were that it was fragile and it hurt my throwing shoulder. In the first few sessions I threw this ball, I over did it and aggravated an old injury I sustained while swimming when I pulled my right shoulder out of socket during a race. That shoulder hasn’t been the same ever since and would flare up once in a while such as when I threw toys to my dogs a few dozen times without warming up. I could alleviate/avoid the pain and keep playing with them by either throwing left-handed or side armed.

The other drawback of the toy was the delicate construction of the fin. Obviously this toy wasn’t meant for dogs. Abby and Father would usually get to the ball about the same time and they would grab a different end and run back to me. While running back, they would be tugging back and forth trying to wrest control of it so that after a while, the stem would snap and the toy was ruined. I could still throw the ball, but not as far. At least it still made that bombing noise when I threw it. They would go through a couple of these Vortex’s a month, but considering how much fun the babies had and how effective the toy was keeping Abby active, fit and trim, it was well spent money.

Doggy Heaven

Left to Right: Andy & Lakota

For dogs, our house must have seemed like ‘doggy heaven’. Once Princess and Father came on the scene, it seemed like a steady stream of dogs appeared at our home. Some were curious passersby who went to the edge of our yard but didn’t show much interest in hanging around. Then there were others who were usurpers trying to challenge Father’s claim to our yard. I’ve previously described in detail of male dogs who bucked up against Father only to be smacked into submission and sent on their way with their tails tucked between their legs.

There were other dogs who I categorize as Father’s ‘concubines’. Father had the good life after he joined our household. He had free meals, free boarding, free medical coverage, and most importantly as far as his namesake is concerned, a steady stream of female dogs that found their way to our house when they were in heat. I did worry about the female visitors because I didn’t know how they would react to Abby’s presence. I worried that they would view Abby as a competitor, but luckily, there was never an incident between Father’s girlfriends and Abby.

One time, a female and her puppy visited our yard. The female was a red chow and her puppy was a fluffy, jet black little fur ball. My god was that puppy so cute. So cute in fact that I went outside the fence where they were and picked up, hugged and petted the puppy. The mom surprisingly didn’t seem upset that I was handling her baby. The puppy was an absolute doll. I’m fairly certain this puppy was Father’s. (For the sake of good taste, I’ll leave out the specifics.) This puppy was about the way I imagined Father looked like when he was a puppy. That puppy was so cute that I wanted to keep it as my own. However, Abby, who was on the other side of the fence, was agitated and quite upset. Her jealousy induced crying and whining made me realize that Abby would not like a new addition to our household, so I put the puppy on the ground. It ran into the nearby woods where its mom was, and they ran off and we never saw them again.

One stray arrived at our house with the hope of sticking around. I barely remember what it looked like, but it was a mixed breed with brown hair. At the time, I was living at my condo and wasn’t willing to adopt it. I had been burdened with thousands of dollars in vet bills the previous few years, and because there were ominous signs our company was going to have a massive lay-off in the next year, I had to go into ‘miser mode’ and watch every penny I had. My mom too needed to watch her budget, so she too couldn’t afford another pet. Realizing what fate lay ahead of this dog, it saddened us to call animal control. The animal control officer arrived at our house shortly after, put a collar around the dog which made it yelp and escorted the dog away. It was sad, but we were burdened with a lot as it was and couldn’t afford to take in a new dog.

Another interloper was a Siberian Husky named Lakota who lived in a house behind ours. The home was a ‘starter home’ in a development built in the late 80’s or early 90’s and so was relatively new compared to our house which was built in the early 50’s. Lakota ran free in her owner’s fenced-in backyard and often stood at her fence gazing at me and the babies running around the backyard playing and having fun. She longed to be with us in our games, and I could hear her whine and cry at her desire to be with us. Apparently, she paid close attention to Father’s going in and out of the fence because one day, Lakota escaped from her fence and snuck into our fence. Andy was still a puppy at the time. What triggered this memory is an old photo of Andy sitting beside Lakota by the pool filter. The dog looked like a wolf and had quite an intimidating appearance. My old fears of big dogs resurfaced, but I quickly found out Lakota was a sweetheart who was lonely and wanted to play with me and the babies. Looking back, I am surprised Father didn’t attack the trespasser, but he may have given her a pass since she was a female.

We immediately recognized Lakota as our neighbor’s dog. My mom called the phone number on the dog’s tag and told the neighbors where their dog was. I wish that is where the story ended with Lakota, but it doesn’t. The owners, a young couple, spoke to my mom a while when they came to our house to retrieve their dog. Eventually the conversation turned on the subject of my playing with the dogs. The neighbors spoke of how funny and entertaining it was when I ran around the pool teasing and playing with Abby. In particular, they thought my game of ‘cooky-coo’ (they didn’t call it that) where I climbed to the top of the slide, heckled and teased Abby followed by screaming at the top of my lungs ‘Coo Coo’ and jumping into the pool was hysterical. This game always drove Abby nuts and led her to whine and cry. The neighbors said they would go to their patio deck in their backyard, sit back and watch the show and said they even made it a point to do so when they saw the game in progress.

I’m glad I wasn’t a witness to that conversation. Just hearing about it was embarrassing enough. Here was a fully grown man running and screaming around his pool with his dog. These people must have thought I was a ‘special needs’ person or something. However, it wasn’t embarrassing enough for me to stop playing the game. The show must go on!

Thanksgiving Trip, 1997

In Thanksgiving 1997, Abby was a year and a half old and was fully grown. She was a big girl just like her huge paws as a puppy indicated she would be. Even when she was lean, her ideal weight was 95 pounds. My second research project was coming to a close, and I could see the finish line for my graduation. My dad was still in his ‘period of troubles’ even though that era too was drawing to a close. My parents were legally divorced by this time, yet my dad’s family has kept in contact with my mom ever since.

My dad’s brother and wife invited my mom, brother, who lived in Atlanta, and me to spend Thanksgiving with them in Waynesville, a small town where my dad grew up in the NC Mountains. My dad was a guest of the state, so he was unable to spend the holidays with us. My first thought when told of this invitation was “What were we going to do about Abby?” My mom told me that she arranged to have her sister, who lived in the Raleigh area, to go to my mom’s house later on Thanksgiving Day so she could let Abby and Father out as well as feed them. My mom further added that I could go to Waynesville early on Thanksgiving Day, spend the day with my family, and early on Friday, my mom said she would return to Raleigh to be with the babies. That way, the dogs would only be alone 24 hours, and even then they would have someone check on them on Thursday evening, so it wouldn’t be that bad for them. I agreed with the plan and would go to the mountains. My mom went to the mountains a day or two before me.

I woke up a couple of hours earlier than normal. Abby wasn’t happy about that. It was way before her usual wake-up time, and she was still sleepy. I let her out, back in, and then got ready for the trip. I gave my farewells to Abby and headed west to Waynesville. During the trip up, I recalled that this would be the first time Abby had not spent the night in bed with me in well over a year. The trip is just under 300 miles, and is almost a straight shot on I-40. Since it was so early, I made the trip relatively fast. I made it to my aunt’s; everyone was there but my brother who arrived a couple of hours after I did. We spent Thanksgiving as we often had when I was a kid visiting up there. We watched a lot of TV and ate quite a bit as well. Later that evening, my mom called her sister, the one who was supposed to check on the babies that day. I overheard my mom say “You’re not going to go up there are you?” I pretty much guessed by my mom’s tone that my aunt was not going to check on the babies. The babies were going to be alone. I felt betrayed and was quite upset. Had I not had a couple of beers that day, I would have gone back to Raleigh right then and there. However, the babies were safe and secure in the house. I had left ample amount of food for them. Other than them using the bathroom in the house, what was the big deal?

I settled in for the night, and enjoyed the remaining time I had with my relatives. I had no idea when I’d see them again. (Some of them I wouldn’t see again for 8 years.) The next day, I made it back home around three or four in the afternoon. Abby greeted me in the kitchen. She was as happy as I thought she would be. One thing struck me as odd was how she tucked her rear a little and then headed towards the door leading to the patio. She never leaves the house that way. But she had to use the bathroom badly. I let her out that patio door, and Abby double-timed it to the grass nearby. Abby had to pee and pee badly. By the force and intensity of the stream of urine, I could tell right then and there that she held it all the time I was away. I had been away for close to 36 hours and she held it the whole time. This is something I couldn’t do myself, but my Baby Girl did it. I had trained her to not go to the bathroom inside. After all those spanks and scolding’s, Abby learned her lesson and must have gone through excruciating pain to avoid getting in trouble with me.

When I went back inside, I noticed there was doo-doo in the dining room left by Father. I am sure that there are some Doubting Thomas’s who are saying, “How do you know that Abby didn’t do it, and not Father?” Well, when Abby did go inside, she would do it by the side door where I usually let her out for her bathroom breaks. There was nothing at that door after I returned. Also, the force and amount of urine Abby had after I first let her out pointed to the fact that she held it the whole time. Also, Father’s “inside spot” was in the dining room.

After I settled in at the house and took care of the Babies, I had to do some grocery shopping and to buy some shoes. As I was about to leave the house, Abby blocked my exit. She literally stood in front of me and wouldn’t let me leave, despite my repeatedly telling her to let me by. Finally, I asked her if she wanted to go bye-bye with me, and she headed out the door with me. First we went to Food Lion at the Tower Shopping Center. I only had to buy a few things, so I was in and out fairly quickly. Then I headed over to a shoe store, also in that shopping center. I was able to find a spot close to the store. I went in to buy some running shoes. While I was waiting for the clerk to get the shoes, I glanced out at my car and could see that Abby was looking right at me. Just for her to see me, even at a distance, was of great comfort to her. She had a forlorn look on her face, but she seemed content knowing where I was. That previous day must have been traumatic for her, all by her babygirlself.

Had Abby used the bathroom in the house that night, I would not have spanked her. There was no way I would have asked her to do something I could not do—hold it for a day and a half. I had trained her too well in this case. How could I have told her that the ‘no peepee in the house rule’ didn’t apply under those circumstances? After that weekend, I really realized what a good girl Abby was. She seemed to have passed from a puppy to a mature adult. I also made a vow that I’d never spank her again. I pretty much held that rule except in one case when she ate some chicken bones out of the trashcan. I did have to give her a little spank for that one.

But on that day after Thanksgiving, my view of Abby changed. It was a watershed moment. She was no longer a carefree puppy I perceived her to be. She was a smart, attentive, and loyal dog. This day cemented the way I thought about her even since.

Nicknames

I have or had many many nicknames for the babies. For many of them, I had no idea how those names were generated, but on others, there is a story behind it and I may discuss it in detail in a later entry. Of course these nicknames sound even nuttier when heard in person when I use a singy-songy voice in addressing the babies.

Abby’s registered name was “Lady Abbe of Longview” while Andy’s was “Sir Andrew of Longview.” My mom named Abby after her mom who was called Abby when she was growing up, which in itself was a nickname. My grandmother’s maiden name was Abbott, so they called her Abby for short. Andy was named after a cartoon character popular in the middle of the 20th century, Andy Panda.

And for the record, the real way to spell Abby’s name was ‘Abbe’. It was my mom’s idea to spell it like that and annoyed the hell out of me. I refuse to spell it that way and use ‘Abby’ instead.


Here is a list of the nicknames for the babies. I may have forgotten a few, so I might update this list later.

Abby

Baby Girl
Baby
Sunshine
Sunshine Angel Beauty Queen
Lala
Angel
Sweety
Bebe
Hottentots
Curly girl
Tippy tips
Tummy

Andy

Baby boy
Andy Pandy
Baby
Rooty toot toot tootily tootily toot toot toot
Rooty
Tooty
Rooty toot toot
Bingbing
Mr. Bing
Little man
Cutie
Cute patootie
Man about it
Man
Mandy
Patootie
Pandy please no
Pandy please
Skinny man
Skinny


Dodo

Twit bird
Dee dee dow dow
Dee dee
Dody
Bird
Doe (rhymes w/ go)

Father

Mr. Mew mew
Good boy
Toy boy
Mew mew

Toy Car

I bought quite a few toys for Abby and then Father once I found he liked them, too. In the grocery store, I would buy tennis balls and racquet balls for the dogs as well as Frisbees. Abby and Father went through those things like a thrasher, so I needed to continually stock up on these items. At the big-box pet stores is where I’d buy the ‘specialized’ dog toys such as a rope shaped in a figure ‘8’ that Abby loved to play tug of war with. I’d also buy the other garden variety dog toys such as the squeaky toys or miscellaneous throwing toys to play fetch with.

Right now, a reader viewing this blog will be thinking “This seems normal. Nothing remarkable here.” However, the next toy I’ll describe which is not meant for dogs is where I pushed the boundaries of eccentricness. First, I’ll give a brief background of the inspiration for my purchasing this toy. I knew Abby loved to chase things such as ball, Frisbees and even little animals such as squirrels. Father, too, loved doing these things as well. “How would they like it if I bought them a remote control toy car?” I thought, “Would they be scared of it?” As I’ve said before, Abby craved excitement and loved doing and seeing new things. Keeping her interested in things and stopping her from being bored was quite a task at times. She had proclivities to be a lazy fat baby if given the opportunity so I had to keep her active.

In order to see how they would react to a remote control toy car, the best way to find out was to go to the store and buy one. The closest store to me at the time was a K-Mart (which is closed now) a couple of miles away on New Bern Ave., but I didn’t go there because the store always had inventory problems, the service sucked, and waiting in those indeterminable lines made a trip 5 miles away to the mall worth my while even when the time factor is considered. In the words of Raymond in Rain Man “K-Mart sucks”.

I went to a Toys-R-Us at the Crabtree Valley Mall. The store wasn’t in the mall itself but in a building across the parking lot from Belk’s. Getting to Crabtree could be a pain in the ass sometimes with the cars backed up all the way to the Beltline at times, the four or five light cycles to pass through an intersection, and of course the parking which could be sparse there. On this day, I don’t think I had much problems making my way there or finding a parking space. Since it was summer, the shopping crowd was relatively thinned out. However going to that place during Christmas can be a zoo.

I picked a silver car in the shape of a race car. I stopped by the grocery store, bought some batteries and went back home to play with my new toy. I was so excited. After I assembled everything and did a test run by myself in my bedroom, I brought the car out to the living room, placed the toy directly in the middle and watched the baby’s’ response.

Abby cautiously approached it, her ears drooped and forehead wrinkled. She sniffed it and walked around it to give a thorough inspection. Father was following Abby’s lead. After a minute or so, they became comfortable with the object which at the time, they did not view as a toy. At that point, I pressed the lever on the remote controller and lurched the car forward a few inches. Abby flinched and jumped back. She looked scared, confused and intrigued all at once. She started whining a little. I lurched the car forward again. This time she only flinched but didn’t jump. She nudged the car with her nose. Next I put the car in full throttle. Abby jumped out of the way as the car sped by. Her vocalization was a full deep-chested bark. Meanwhile, Father, who was watching the event, took on that look—a look he has when he is on the prowl. Father snapped into ‘predator mode’. He, too, barked at the car but in contrast to Abby’s, Father’s was a high pitched, shrill, and piercing bark. They both gave chase to the car. I learned quickly that I could aim the car at Abby and she would dodge it out of fear and hesitation. However if I pulled that stunt with Father, he would use his predatory skills to knock the car over or he would simply grab the car with his teeth and chew it up. It didn’t take long for the plastic protruding parts on the car to become gnarled and mangled.

This toy would give us many hours of fun both inside and out. Outside, I could maneuver the car better on the concrete pool deck and change direction better than what I could do inside. I could also make the car go faster outside was well. Regardless if the car was out or in, the dogs loved playing with it. Sometimes I would bring the car into the room and leave it in an inconspicuous place and leave the remote control by my table. The dogs would hardly take notice of it and after a while forget it was there. I would then lurch the car forward which would whip the dogs into a tizzy. Abby caught on that I was somehow associated with the car’s mobility. I can’t say with absolute certainty she knew, but when I would move the car slightly, she would, while waiting for the car to take off, glance up at my hand holding the remote. I don’t think she knew one made the other go, but she knew to associate one with the other.

I kept that toy car and used it once in a while as Abby grew older but not as much as when she was younger. Her arthritis limited her mobility. That was one reason I didn’t bring out the car as often. The main reason I didn’t play with the car in later years is that Andy was scared of it. If I brought the car out, Abby would slip out of the room and hide on my mom’s bed. Or if we were outside, he would walk up the hill in the backyard well out of the car’s reach and fearfully watch Father, Abby and I play with the car. I love Andy, but he has a nervous disposition and lives his life in fear.

The car itself suffered the ill fate of many battery operated toys. After a long period of disuse with the batteries still in the toy, the batteries turned cruddy and eroded the inside of the toy rendering it worthless. I don’t know how much money I paid for that thing, but I definitely got my money’s worth.

Abby's First Christmas

(This wasn't the tree mentioned below, but it pretty much looked the same and was about in the same place that tree was in '96.)

Christmas in ’96 was the first one after my grandmother’s death, and the 3rd one that my dad would not spend with us since this was in the middle of his ‘period of troubles.’ On a brighter note, this was the first Christmas ever for my baby girl. As if we didn’t dote on her enough, we thought we would involve Abby in the festivities by purchasing her a gift as well. I bought her a gift basket from a big-box pet store. It was filled with pigs ears, milk bones, rawhide chew toys and some squeaky toys. The fact that a pet store would have such an item meant I wasn’t the only one out there who paid a little too much time with his pet and overindulging it. It was a relief to know that there were other dog owners out there who were just as eccentric about their babies as I was. I even went so far as to wrap the gift basket and place it under the tree along with the other ‘people gifts’.

Not wanting to leave Father out and hurt his feelings, I bought him a gift basked too, wrapped it and placed it under the tree. My plan was to open their presents on Christmas Eve when we opened our presents. Things didn’t work out the way we wanted. The day we put the gift baskets under the tree, Father zeroed in on one of them, sat in front of it and guarded it in full earnest. When Abby walked by him, he growled a little and drew even closer to the gift basket, with the gift between his front paws. Father grew anxious and irritated even when I or someone else came close to his gift.
I thought it was so cute that Father knew the gift was his. He picked it out of the whole stack of gifts and wasn’t going to let it out of his site. It was almost like a predator-prey scenario. He stalked out his loot and wasn’t going to let it go. Father wasn’t too mean to Abby. Abby was somewhat confused, but she didn’t press the issue since there was so much more going on to divert her attention from a possibly volatile situation.

We couldn’t let this situation go on for days on end. Had we let Father, he was going to stay by his prize as long as he had to until he reaped the rewards. We decided to go ahead and give Father and Abby their baskets which they absolutely loved. Come to think of it, this gift to the babies was about the only thing I remember about that Christmas. I’m not sure if we ever gave them gifts like that again. I wished I had taken pictures of that time, but I didn’t.

Father Goose or The Geese Police

(The above photo was taken years after Father had died.)

One evening after the sun had set, the dogs wanted to go out and use the bathroom. My mom was out of town, but I’m not sure where she was vacationing at the time. What I do know is that it was in the fall sometime before I moved to NJ, so the only dogs there were Abby and Father. When I opened the side door leading to the backyard, instead of Father jauntily walking which could almost be described as hopping, he accelerated into a full sprint and made a beeline straight to the pool. Also at this time, I heard wings flapping from what sounded like a large bird, accompanied by the sounds of water splashing in the pool and squawking. I’m almost certain it was a Canadian goose. In a nearby lake, there is a flock living there, so it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that one of them could have flown over, saw our pool and decided to hang around. I have seen Canadian Geese in our front yard a few times as well.

The goose escaped unscathed, but what a dramatic moment that was! To see Father take off like a bat out of hell set the tone of that event. Then to see Father run straight towards the pool confused me even further because Father is scared of the water and is an awful swimmer. And yet there he was running straight to the water. Hearing a large bird flapping in your backyard is a little discombobulating too. This was the first time I had seen a Canadian goose in our yard, and he was making quite a commotion.

I’ve always wondered that if that bird were in the pool by the time Father reached it, would Father have leapt in to attack it? I have little doubt Father would have gone after this bird. There were a couple of times when Father accompanied me on a run which took me by the goose’s lake when I had to call off Father from attacking one of them. When you’re by yourself, those cocky little bastards can be mean as hell by hissing at you and extending their wings as you go by. But when Father was around, they were scared shitless. When Father ran to the pool that night, I was certain he was going to try to kill this bird (actually there may have been two), because the way he ran was the same as when I saw him chase after a squirrel and kill it or chase a cat and try to kill it.

I also wonder if Father could have killed the bird without drowning. Like I’ve said before Father knew how to kill and would have sunk his teeth around that goose’s skinny little neck and choked the life out of it. A full grown goose would have been five star dining for Father, a feast of a lifetime.

Looking back, this was another example of Father earning his keep. Had those geese established a nest in our backyard, I’m pretty sure it would have been illegal for us to disturb it. In places where Canadian Geese have become pests by camping out at parks, corporate grounds and golf courses, getting rid of them can be a headache. An effective way to drive away these birds is to use dogs. For the sake of civility and public relations, certain dogs such as border collies are used for the task, but I imagine Rottweilers or chows would work just as well even though they would try to eat those birds instead. Border collies love to run and have an almost instinctual drive to herd animals. Canadian geese don’t like dogs, especially those who are trying to round them into a herd, so eventually they get the message and find somewhere else to live. I guess these geese received the message loud and clear because they never came back or at least in Father’s lifetime.

Biting the Hand That Feeds You

This story took place a few years after my mom’s Great Britain trip. Thinking about how much I loved teasing Abby brought back this memory of when I teased Father and how the contrast between those two was so stark when it came to teasing. I was living in NJ at the time and was back down in NC vacationing sometime in the summer. I was in the kitchen alone with Father, only that Father didn’t know I was in the room with him. I was around the corner by the door leading to the patio and Father was almost at the boundary between the kitchen and the breakfast room with his back to the kitchen. I sneaked up behind him and quickly but lightly grabbed his hip area. It scared the hell out of poor Father. He tensed up, reached his head around and put his mouth on my hand. I was damned close to being bitten. Father immediately released his mouth from my hand and in a seemingly simultaneous sequence of events, he dropped to the floor and rolled on his back, prostrate and in fear.

That was the only time Father ever physically confronted me after he moved in with us, and even before, all he did was bark at me and run away. He never made physical contact with me when he was mad at me. This was a dog that believed in a strict hierarchy. It almost comforted him the order it brought to his life. He knew I was the alpha, and he would never ever knowingly challenge me. He was so pitiful the way he was laying there, the way he displayed total submission to me. I knew Father was startled and further realized that he didn’t like teasing or roughhousing. He was scared. Scared in the thought that he was being attacked when I grabbed him, scared of the idea of what I may do to him for his aggression to me.
I don’t know what was going on in my head thinking that it would be OK to tease Father like this. I didn’t expect he would bite the shit out of me which he nearly did. I can still feel those teeth bearing down on my hand right now. I made a mistake and needed to ‘kiss and make-up’ with him. I reached down, rubbed Father’s stomach, told him he was a good boy, and loved him. He started licking me, jumped to his feet and was back to his ebullient-self hopping around.

London Calling

(An actual photo my mom took on that trip)


In the fall, by mom took a couple of vacations, one of them was two week trip to Great Britain. My mom and her sister along with their aunt, uncle and cousin flew to London and went on a bus tour around England, Wales and Scotland. My immediate worry was how Abby was going to behave with all that “alone time”. She was still in her separation anxiety phase of her life, and other than a few days here and there, Abby had not spent much time by her babygirlself. I was going to have to change my routine quite a bit to accommodate my baby girl. I shortened my work day. I got into and out of the lab as quickly as I could. I also decided to come home for lunch, which I normally did not do. I didn’t have the heart to leave Abby at home for so long. She was still a high-strung puppy needing quite a bit of attention and physical exertion. She still played fetch, but she was also discovering how good she was at tug-o-war. I hoped that limiting my time away from home to 4 or 5 hours max, it would make her separation anxiety more manageable.

I started my days as any other while my mom was gone. However, since no one was around in the house to let Abby outside in the morning, I’d let her out, go to the bathroom, and then let her back in. Abby grew even closer to me while my mom was away. She went with me everywhere in the house. So in the mornings, she would come into the bathroom with me while I showered and shaved. She would just lie there and fall asleep. Where my routine departed was after I dressed, I’d usually say my good-byes to Abby and head off to school. Now, I’d go outside with Abby, accompany her while she sniffed around, or I’d play with her. Then I would go to school.

I’d leave for school around 8:30 unless I had an 8 am lab, and do some lab work. At this point in grad school, I was finished with taking courses and had passed all my cumes. There was no more course work for me (forever, or so I thought). Other than some seminars, the major obstacle between me and graduating was lab work. Sometime between noon and 1, I went back home to see Abby. She was always delighted to see me. I’d feed her, play with her, let her out, play some more with her and let her back in. I know there are some curious people out there who may say “How come you didn’t leave Abby out in the back yard in the fenced in area?” Well, call me paranoid or a worry-wart, but I had heard stories of how those in dog fighting would steal docile pets and use them as ‘sparing partners’ for the fighting dogs. I’ve heard that golden retrievers were favorites for such dog trainers, but I imagine a lab would suffice for their needs. This was well before the Michael Vick story played out, but since then, I feel justified in not letting Abby sit in the backyard like that.

Father wasn’t much trouble for me. He was never a needy dog. He was a “go with the flow type of dog”. When Abby and I played, Father played. When Abby and I went out, Father went out. However when Abby ate, Father usually did not eat. I’ll discuss more of this in a later entry. Father also didn’t sleep in my bedroom with me. He was scared to go that far back in the house. I imagine he felt trapped after so many turns, hallways and rooms. At night, he would sleep in my mom’s room or in the hallway by the foyer.

After 30 minutes of visiting time, I gave my farewells to the babies and went back to school. If I didn’t have a night lab, I would come home around 6 or 6:30. However, the organic lab director liked to have men teaching night labs for safety reasons. It was an unwritten and unspoken policy, but I noticed that the night labs tended to be taught by males. I will say that one night one of my students was robbed at gunpoint while going home after leaving one of my labs. When I did teach night labs, I would return home around 9:30 or so. However when the lab was ‘identification of unknowns’, the lab took the whole 3 hours. It was the most stressful lab for students. Miss an unknown, and 10 points is automatically taken off of the lab report. With 3 unknowns for each student, the thought of losing 30 points rightly put the students on edge. I tried to make my labs as ‘stress free’ as possible, but this was one lab I couldn’t help them out on. They were on their own; they knew it and struggled to deal with it.

When I returned home, again, Abby was happy to see me as was Father. However, Abby would leave me a surprise upon my return. Yes, she had pitched a baby girl fit. She could handle me leaving her the first time in a day, but when I left her again that day, it was too much for her to bear. Instead of mangling my mom’s glasses, Abby sought out one of my belongings either from the table by the recliner chair where I normally sat in the living room, or she would march back to my bedroom and grab an article of clothing, bring it to the living room and drop it off there. I would ask her ‘Did you do that?’ she would sit quietly, look up and away from me, and then I’d scold her and give her a ‘little’ spank. I’d swat at her rear without putting any force behind it and say ‘bad girl’. She would get on her haunches and try to hug me. I couldn’t resist that, and I’d bend over and hug her. She would wag her tail and lick my face. We would then settle in for the night filled with playing and romping around the house. We had the place all to ourselves and were going to make good use of it.

She Loves Me; She Loves Me Not Part II

When Abby saw me arrive home every day, she would be excited and want to play. It wasn’t from being isolated or alone. My mom was with her at home all day and kept her company almost all the time. But when I came home, Abby would wag her tail, run to me, jump up on me and start to play. I didn’t think about how much she really loved me. I wrote it off as boredom or excitement of something new.

(I showed the ‘aerial’ view of the backyard to show the relation of the pool’s edge to the fence and to the trampoline. From the edge of the pool to the trampoline was about 3 or 4 feet and the height difference from the pool’s edge to the top of the fence was about 3 feet.)
Even in my mid 20’s, I would often jump on the trampoline. One day after arriving from school, I greeted everyone, changed into my shorts as I usually do (in the lab I wore jeans) and went to play on the trampoline. Jumping on the trampoline meant not playing with Abby or paying her any attention at all which frustrated her quite a bit. On this day when I did this, this was too much for her to handle, and with my back turned to the fence while I was on the trampoline, I could feel something drop onto the trampoline. It was Abby. She had run down the pool’s edge, leaped completely over the fence and landed on the trampoline!

I couldn’t believe it. Even as a puppy, Abby was big-boned and stocky, so it was shocking that she had so much pop in her step. Looks were very deceiving in this case. It kind of reminded me of this 350lb Olympic weight lifter who could slam dunk a basketball.

Abby was so happy to be with me, and we started to wrestle on the trampoline. Abby would jump the fence a few more times in the weeks to come. The last time she did it, she clipped the fence and tumbled onto the trampoline. I guess that scared her a bit so she never tried it again, much to my relief. It was fairly obvious how attached she was to me. I wouldn’t realize how attached I was to her until later.

In the mean time, we owned two dogs that our fence could not contain. Father could climb the fence, and often did. As a matter of fact, that was his choice of getting in and out of the fence. He would not wait for us to open the gate for him when he wanted to get on the other side from where he was at. Although Abby could jump the fence, she never did except when I was on the trampoline.

This concerned my mom, so she bought a new fence. It was around 5-6 feet high, and its perimeter went around a wider area of the backyard than the old fence did which gave Abby much more room to play out back. Abby wasn’t able to jump the fence nor did she ever try. Father, on the other hand, could climb it, which he often did. There were days when he was tired where he went to gaps or weak-points between the fence and the ground and crawl under it. Fortunately, Abby didn’t try that method of escape.