After we lost our blonde lab/collie mix about five years ago (one great dog), we were pretty sure there were no other great dogs out there for us. One day I was in Portsmouth at a friend’s beauty shop, and a gal brought in a puppy with my friend’s clean towels. It looked like the perfect puppy, because it was following her as she was speaking to it. It seemed very obedient, quite adorable. It was blonde, apparently a mix of something (or two or three), and endearing because some masochist had obviously tried to ruin part of its tail by putting a tight rubber band on it to stub it. So sad. This gal already had three cats in her apartment, so her husband was not in favor of keeping this puppy—which she had rescued from roaming the busy streets of Port Norfolk—and I had a feeling that my husband would fall in love with the little fellow. He was exactly the right color!
I talked him into driving down in the evening and better than $150 later we had ourselves a little puppy just happy as a lark to please us. He was fairly easy to train—we did the crate training, and as near as I can remember we never had to clean up any messes from the crate. There was the occasional accident, but on the whole Duncan was a pretty easy puppy in the training department. Potty that is. Because from the moment we brought him home there was just one word for him—hyper. My husband just egged him on.
His favorite thing to do is R-U-N-N-O-F-T. Now that he’s a little older, he tires out quicker and gets thirsty faster, so he will come home quicker. My brother even bought us one of those expensive underground fences—you all know the problem with those if they bolt—and he bolts! Then, someone drove over the wire and broke it and that was the end of that!
Now five years later we have a dog of routine. He knows Saturdays best and loves them dearly. That’s the day he gets to ride with his man in the truck to the dump. The words “go for a ride” “ride in the truck” or “go to the dump” will cause him to jump as high as my husband’s head—a full six foot three. Until then he has to make do with dancing circles during our three cups of coffee, impatiently waiting his turn for his master’s attention.
He also likes to sit out on the deck with us looking at the birds, killing bugs, and hopefully waiting for the cat, guarding his territory with his very life because the cat shouldn’t really get any of our precious attention while we’re sitting on the deck.
Bedtime is the most precious though, when the 35-pound mutt plops down on our side of the bed (whoever is not there first) waiting for his bit of attention before he grudgingly relinquishes it to us for the night. Then he cuddles up in his favorite spot next to Mom to get some strokes (it must be constant attention, or he has to hop up and reposition, thinking he must not have given me the message…) until he falls asleep. In about twenty minutes, his internal alarm sounds and it’s time to hit the floor for the night (thank you, Jesus!) and we get the bed to ourselves!
What a great dog we have!
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