Finally Home-Lessons on Life from a Free-Spirited Dog (16 page)

His response still makes me cringe and gets me angry
until
this very day.

He said
,
“I know
.
T
hey terrorize our dog
,
too. That is the problem with Vegas, the rocks.”

I think if I were a man I would have knocked him out right there on the spot.
T
he
rocks
were
the
problem
?
How about parents who d
id
not take responsibility or correct their children?
Had I not been home, my window would have been
shattered
and my dogs possibly stoned to death?
How
wa
s that
acceptable?

I d
id
not have a problem with children making mistakes or even bad judgment calls
. I did get upset
when the parents
we
re not there to correct them and apologize for their actions or
,
better yet, blame inanimate object
s such as rocks as the problem.

This was reason enough for me to move.
That, coupled with the tiny living
space
, made the decision easy for us.

We found a really nice area in which to live
,
and as luck would have it, they were building brand new homes.
After
checking
out the area a bit, we decided to sell our current home and put a down payment on this new one.
It was still far enough from The Strip that we did not need to deal with the
heavy
traffic, but close enough to visit if we ever felt the need.

It
was a pretty
nice
house, located on a nice-sized yard (
by
Vegas standards).
There were a few parks, including a dog park, as well as stairs leading to an endless hiking trail.

After we
moved into the house
in November of 2006
,
I found
an ideal job providing
tech support for a software company.
This seemed to be most fitting for me.
It was about a half
-
hour from our new house and
was
close enough to what I was seeking in the job market.
The manager and I hit it off from the start,
as she wa
s also a dog
-
lover and shared
the
same offbeat sense of humor.

I was able to start immediately
,
and this fit right into our plan.
It was starting to come together as
we had hoped
.
Our new house was great and our neighbors were starting to move in as well.
Buddy’s antics, however, did not stop there.

I received an interesting phone call w
hile I was at work
one day.
Michael called me up and
in a curious tone
and
asked
me a very odd question.

“Do you own a
black slipper
?”

I thought about it for a m
inute, and with a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach, replied,
“Um, no
.
W
hy
?
”

He said matter-of-factly that Buddy
had
ventured out of our house while the
maintenance
guys were over
doing work inside of our house. T
he front door did not s
hut tight unless you slammed it,
and Buddy
sneaked
out.
When he came back
,
he
was slobbering all over a random
black slipper.
I could not imagine where he
had
gotten
it
from and
my mind was racing with
possibilities.

While I was
speaking
to Michael trying to figure it out, Michael abruptly
exclaimed that
he had to
hang up
as someone was
knocking
at the door and he would call me back.

Knowing Buddy as well as I did, I could only guess where he
had retrieved this new item.
Sure enough, Michael called me back hysterical
ly
laughing.
At this point, my imaginative juices were flowing.
What the hell
had
this dog do
ne
now?

In between fits of laughter, Michael was able to
fill me in with
the entire story.
Always the opportunist,
Buddy had snuck out of our house and leisurely walked into our neighbor’s garage while our new neighbor was moving in.
Buddy
then
proceeded to
look around and
steal his slipper right
out of one of the boxes. He
barked that famous I
-
stole
-
something
-
come
-
chase
-
me bark
,
brought it back into our house
,
and sat on the couch
as if
he
’d
done
nothing wrong
.

Though I was not there to see his face, I am sure Buddy was gleaming with pride.
The world was his playground and he probably felt that he was entitled to play with his new toy.

Th
at
knock at the door happened to be our neighbor standing there
looking
kind of perplexed with the other matching slipper
in his hand
.
I can only envision what he must have been thinking as he
was moving into his new house.

There he was, innocently unpacking his boxes of household items such as dishes,
clothes, and, of course, slippers. Out of nowhere, a psychotic
dog
had run
up and not attack
ed
him, but instead
had
st
olen
from him
right under his nose
and run away.

And so it began
.
Buddy
was
terrorizing the new neighborhood.
We were very lucky that our new neighbor turned out to be so friendly and such a dog lover, so there were no hard feelings.
We were lucky
because Buddy did something similar about two years later.

Again, though we should have learned the first time, we took the pups for a walk and when we came back,
the same
neighbor was in the front yard of his house.
We all said hello, talked for a while
,
and started to go into our respective houses.
We let Buddy off of the leash since we did not live on a busy street anymore and figured he was tired from his two
-
mile walk.

A
lmost everyone in Las Vega
s uses their garage as an entry
way to their house
, and j
ust
as we were entering
our
garage,
we saw Buddy
glance
toward our neighbor’s house.
With Buddy,
one certain
look
,
and you know you are in for it.
You just never know exactly how much you are in for.

Our neighbor had just entered his house from the door leading from the garage to his house w
ith
his garage
door
open.
We noticed the look in Bud’s eyes
,
and faster than we could grab him, he ran over to our neighbor’s house and patiently waited outside the door to his house.
Before I could reach him our unsuspecting neighbor came back out to shut his garage door
,
and Buddy raced
past him
into the entrance
of
his
house
.

This normally would not be
so
bad, except
for
the fact that our neighbor ha
d
a dog that d
id
not particularly like other dogs, especially those that barge
d
in unannounced
.
Once again, Buddy, now eight years old,
had
trespassed into our neighbor’s house.

If you have ever tried to remove a dog from a place they do not want to be removed from, you will know what I mean when I say this was not easy.
Buddy had himself in a down position, rolled over with his belly exposed
. A
ll four legs
were trying to push me off, and his
tail
was wagging like an electric fan. To add to this, he was
playfully biting my wrists so
that
I couldn’t grab him.
Clearly he was having a ball. I wish I could have said the same for me.

After a good chase, no harm was done
,
and I was able to carry this now seventy
-
pound m
onster out of the house. O
nce again
, I felt
my face
turn
beet red from embarrassment
,
and my back
was
aching from carrying a crazy, determined, squirming dog.

After this episode, I did not want to face our neighbor for a few days because I felt like I always did when Buddy caused havoc
:
run
-
down, beaten
,
and embarrassed.

Through all of this, we learned how to deal with some of his craziness
,
and some o
f it we just never understood. Since we had first adopted Buddy, he had calmed down a great deal and listened to his commands more often than not. Some things would never change, however, as he still maintained his persistent desire to be somewhat ill-behaved.

Regardless of his interesting conduct, we were happy with our decision to move to Las Vegas, and especially thrilled that our neighbors were so friendly.

Things were going extremely well until a repeat of the issues with rocks came into play.

Tolerance is definitely an acquired trait.
It is something that needs to be practiced and perfected.
It definitely does not happen overnight.

About a year after living in our new home, I was making my lunch
and
the
dogs were outside barking continuously with no end in sight.
As I looked in the backyard, it was easy to see
what was setting them off.

Behind us no houses had been built
yet
,
and
it was an empty lot
—an improvised
playground
where
kids could easily get injured.
Hanging off of the brick fence in our backyard that day were two small kids.

I kindly asked the kids to get down as they were going to get hurt
,
and they
blatantly ignored me
.
I
asked them once
more, and they proceeded to remain
exactly where they were
—
only this time they threw a rock at one of the dogs.