Testing My Manliness: The Dog, Part II

For part one, read here.

She was only 5 weeks old when we adopted our half-lab, half-border collie (a “borador) puppy Lucy. We expected our children to love the furball, and for Lucy to get used to the idea of our children being bigger and stronger than her. We did not anticipate the insane energy of a borador puppy. Even though she weighed less than 7 pounds, she could easily knock over any of our children, and regularly did so, all the while licking them like the best popsicle ever. Our oldest daughter – yes, the same one who asked for a dog for over a year – quickly developed a dog phobia, climbing to the top of the nearest piece of furniture any time the dog was out of her crate. Perched atop our kitchen table, our daughter would assure us that she’d play with the puppy “later.”

Lucy also began peeing and chewing on everything. Yes, this is what puppies do. However, we also expected we’d be able to train her without screaming children running about the room, and we expected that we would have at least one-tenth the consistency and willpower of an animal whose brain was smaller than a peach pit. Wrong on both accounts.

We enrolled in dog training classes at PetSmart (forcing our oldest daughter to come with us), and things got better. Lucy’s incredibly smart, so she started to pick up on basic training – even cool things like jumping through a hoop. “Ok,” we thought, “maybe we can do this.”

Then, things got a lot worse.

First, we had to take a 10-day trip to Michigan. We were camping, so we thought dogs would be OK to bring, but no, this camp does not allow pets. Surprise surprise, none of our family was willing to dogsit the urine machine. We found a kennel that would take a puppy (most will not kennel dogs under 6 months old), but the long time away from us erased most of her hard-won training. Grrr.

Then, literally the day after we got home, I broke Lucy’s paw. Not on purpose, I swear. I was trying to get her to go outside, she ran under me at the wrong time, we both moved to the same place, and – I stepped on her paw with an audible crack. The vet confirmed that she had broken a bone in the middle of her foot. She would have to wear a cast for at 4 to 8 weeks, stay as inactive as possible, and keep her cast dry and clean. In other words, she would have to stay in her crate almost 24-7.

As a friend of mine recently informed me, labs and border collies have the highest energy levels of any large dogs. Staying in her crate made Lucy miserable. She couldn’t get her cast wet, either, so her time outside was strictly limited by wet weather. She lost the little training that remained, as well as developed the nasty habit of peeing in her crate whenever she liked.

So here’s the situation, post-trip, post-foot, post-growth-spurt-that-added-25-more-pounds-to-this-dog.

1) Urine. Specifically, urine in the house, in her crate, on the couch, on me….Frankly, it’s getting a bit tiresome. Our 3-year-old suggested we buy her some diapers. She might have something there.

2) Teething. Did you know that puppies teethe just like babies? It’s true. The only difference is that dogs have the teeth and jaws of wolves, which means that they can destroy just about anything they can get their mouth around. From our experience, “things dogs can destroy” include:

• Frisbees
• Stuffed animals
• Patio swings
• Trampolines
• Deck boards
• Screen doors
• Umbrellas
• Patio swings
• Giant patio umbrellas
• Garden hoses
• Soccer balls
• Did I mention patio swings?

For those of you who don’t have babies, let me assure you that babies almost never eat patio swings.

3) Jumping. Lab-border collie mixes love people. Let me amend that: they LOVE LOVE LOVE PEOPLE!!!!! Lucy expresses this love by trying to kiss you, which means that she jumps up, puts her paws on your chest, and becomes very, very excited. It’s annoying when she does it to me. It’s terrifying when she does it to the kids. She knocks the kid to the ground, goes after their face with her tongue going crazy, and, for a brief moment, we wonder if this is going to move into the “teething” category.

Me, I like this dog. If I were single with no kids, I bet we’d get along great, especially if I had no job, got depressed if I sat inside all day, and could just work on training and walking her every day. As it is, it’s been, well, a character-building experience.

She’s making progress, though. With her foot fully healed, we’ve been able to restart our dog training classes. Even better, PetSmart recently switched trainers for our class, and Lucy is responding better to the new woman. It’s probably not very manly that a woman at PetSmart who only sees the dog once a week can command Lucy far better than I can, but at least she’s taller than me. If she were, like, five-foot-two and looked like my mom, that would be less manly. This new trainer has given us revolutionary advice like, “She jumps all over your kids? Keep her on a leash when she’s around them.” Oh yeah – the leash. It’s kind of designed for that, isn’t it?

Slowly, very slowly, Lucy is starting to get the idea that:

• Urine goes outside. (OK, so she also thinks it goes inside, but most of it goes outside.)
• Children are not for jumping upon. (Licking like a popsicle? Yes. Jumping? No – at least, not when the leash is on.)
• Furniture is not for chewing. (Unless that furniture is outside. Or red. Or especially chewable.)

We had a breakthrough of sorts over the weekend. I was raking leaves and the kids were jumping into them. My wife brought Lucy out on the leash so that we could work on training her not to jump on the kids. After a few successful “non-jump” incidents, Lucy dives into the leaves with our 6-year-old, splashes around with her, and then starts licking her silly, but without pinning her down. Our 6-year-old – the one with the dog phobia – throws her hands out, kicks her legs, and…laughs like a maniac. She’s loving it. She thinks Lucy tickles, and she even complains when my wife finally pulls the dog out of the leaves. Our 3-year-old even got Lucy to sit on command a few times. Maybe this dog is going to work out.

I can’t say that I’m as manly as an Alaskan dog sled driver or one of those circus guys with the dancing Pomeranians. Still, I’m keeping an animal in a cage in our living room who can disassemble a patio swing with her teeth. It’s almost exactly like keeping a tiger in your backyard, except more culturally acceptable. This dog has lived with us for 6 months now, and no one (except the dog) has needed an ER visit. That’s all the success you need, right?

Testing My Manliness Score: A+

Related posts:

1. Testing My Manliness: The Dog, Part 1
2. Testing My Manliness: The Swing Set
3. Today in Manliness: January 11
4. Christmas Roundtable: Manliest Christmas Movies