My Best Friends Have Hairy Legs (2 page)

Tulip, a cocker spaniel, had been his mother’s dog. Marc had only a few memories of the dog, and all of them were of her being restricted just to the kitchen area. She was not allowed in the rest of the house, and neither Marc nor his brother spent any real time with her. She was just “a dog” and not a member of the family. I got the impression that most of the time she was an annoyance—some “thing” that wanted love and attention that no one seemed to want to give. When she had died the decision had been made to not get another dog. They were just too much of a bother. How fortunate for all the dogs of the world!

Lucky for Trooper I didn’t have the same philosophy when it came to companion animals, and since he was spending so much time at my house, I was raising him with lots of love and attention like I had raised all of my animal companions in the past. Marc and Ryan unfortunately were not as attentive, and whether they liked it or not, he was quickly becoming closely bonded to me. Even though he was supposed to be Ryan’s dog, they did not have much interaction with him except to feed or walk him when I reminded them. Neither of which happened often enough for Trooper to bond with them. On the weekends when Marc drove down to see Ryan, I would try to go at least every other month and we would take the dogs so that Trooper could spend time with Ryan.

After Ryan went home for the summer in early August my relationship with Marc shifted into high gear. We spent almost every day—and night—together. We went to church on Sundays, ate lunch together every day since we both worked at the military base, and movies or out to eat once a week. By the middle of September he was already talking about getting married, and we made plans for him to move in with me in October and give up his apartment. While we had remained celibate when Ryan was there, once he was gone Marc and I were intimate three or more times a week.

In late September we made plans one night to go look at rings after work. I got home from work early and when Marc arrived he was on his cell phone arguing with his ex-wife. Within minutes of walking in the door he slammed his phone down on the kitchen counter in anger and said that she had just hung up on him. She had called him at work and they had been arguing for over an hour—she wanted more child support money since he was going to give up his apartment and would have “extra” money. Before he was able to completely change out of his uniform, she had called back and they started arguing again. They argued the entire twenty minute drive to the mall, and as we sat in the parking lot, they continued arguing. After fifteen minutes of listening to him yell at her, I got out of the car and went into the mall. I went to the bathroom, wandered into three jewelry stores, tried on five rings, and then went back out to the car some thirty minutes later.

He was still arguing with her.

As I got back into the car to drive us home, he made a questioning face and motioned to the mall. I said I was no longer in the mood. They argued the entire twenty minute drive home, and when I pulled into the driveway and went into the house I left him in the car, still arguing.

Thirty minutes later he came into the house. She had hung up on him again. When he came upstairs I could hear his cell phone ringing downstairs and when he turned to go answer it, I held his arm and asked him to please just leave it, but he was worried that if he didn’t answer it, she would think that she was right. Before I had a chance to argue the logic of that, the house phone rang.

I answered it without even thinking that it might be her. She had never been given my home number since Ryan had his own cell phone and so she had access to him no matter where he was. When she introduced herself as Ryan’s mother and asked to speak to Marc I was stunned. I asked how she had gotten my number and she said she had called information. Without saying another word, I handed the phone to Marc and left the room to go downstairs.

I listened to Marc yell at her for another twenty minutes without it sounding like he was ever really saying anything at all.

The “Serenity” my home held for me was quickly being shattered by their arguing. My home had been my refuge after 8 my second marriage and I had spent a lot of time and effort to make it peaceful and welcoming. The yelling and hateful words that were now being spewed in my bedroom were filling the house with negative thoughts. It was my turn to lose some patience.

I walked upstairs and went over to where the phone plugged into the wall and yanked the cord out. Marc turned to me angrily and yelled at me, asking why I did that. “Now she’s really going to think she’s right!!”

I just looked at him and asked “Why did that even matter? Who cares what she thinks?” He knew what the truth was and she obviously wasn’t going to believe him so what did it really matter what she thought? They weren’t even listening to each other any more. All they were doing was making noise. As soon as they started yelling, they stopped listening. Each of them thinking only of what they were going to scream back when one of them stopped to breathe. They had been arguing now for over three hours and nothing had been resolved.

I heard the phone downstairs ring. Neither of us moved for the door. I heard the answering machine pick up and I heard her leave a message angrily asking why Marc was going to allow me to talk to her “that way” and that he better pick up the phone and talk to her away from “that old bitch.” I heard the answering machine time out and hang up on her as she continued to berate him for how I had “treated” her.

I would like to be able to say that was “the” red flag that caused me to end the relationship. I would like to be able to say that I kept the dog and kicked out the man. But I try to live an honest life, and there really wouldn’t be much point in a book if that had been the case. I wanted to believe that the man I saw—the good father, the passionate lover, the quiet, sensitive, funny man I had fallen in love with would be able to break free from her control once the “newness” of their divorce had worn off. She was used to being able to control and manipulate him by verbally, and sometimes physically, abusing him. Once she realized that he was out of her reach, and once he realized that I wasn’t like that, their relationship would be regulated to just civil conversations about Ryan. I had fallen in love with Marc, and with Ryan, and I didn’t want to let her “win” by ending our relationship. That was what she wanted, and I wasn’t going to be that easy to beat.

In the end though, I did choose to end the relationship because of her. My decisions to ignore the red flags I had seen early in the relationship turned into a very expensive mistake, but ultimately, I think I still won.

I got the dog.

As with most of the mistakes we make in life, they are usually lessons we learn from. I’ve been asked if I would change anything in my life—if I had a “do-over”—would there be people or events that I would avoid like the plague. Would I have made different choices? Wiser decisions? That is always a tough one to answer. Would I like to have avoided a painful phase in my life? All the hurt and tears that came with a bad relationship? Sure, who wouldn’t? But honestly, it is all those things that have made me who I am today, and I actually like myself today. If any of those things hadn’t happened… I’m not sure I would be this person today. I certainly wouldn’t trade all the pain and hurt from that relationship if it meant that I wouldn’t have Trooper.

He is, by far, the best dog I have ever had. And sorry girl friends, but he is, by far, the best friend I have ever had.

C
HAPTER
2

Trooper

From the start, I knew that Trooper was an exceptional dog. I crate-trained him in the beginning, but he was house-broken by the time he was ten weeks old, and he actually never had a bathroom accident in the house. From the time he was housebroken and trusted to be out of the crate when I was not home, he would use the doggy door during the day that my pug, Tink, and my cats used. At night everyone was grounded at “curfew”—sunset. By the time he was twelve weeks old, he was learning to “speak” at the back door at night when he needed to go out. Soon he was too big to fit through the doggy door at all, and would speak to go out when I was home, or hold everything until I got home. He had a single bark for when he needed to go out, but a series of loud “Who are you? This is MY house!” barks when someone rang the doorbell or knocked at the storm door. If he needed to go out at night, he would come to the side of the bed and give his single bark in a softer “inside” voice; but if I was home and wasn’t in eyesight during the day, his single bark would be loud enough to hear upstairs even if I was in the shower.

I know I’m making him sound like he was perfect, but he was still just a puppy that was learning how to behave. We had to have the occasional “discussion” about things that were not acceptable to chew on—like corners on the walls. I never yelled at him, never, ever physically disciplined him. Instead, I would get down to eye level with him—which quickly meant just sitting down next to him since he was growing so fast—and we would “discuss” what was unacceptable behavior. I never raised my voice, but would talk low and near his ear. I would point to or touch the offense and tell him that it was unacceptable, and that I knew he was smart and that he knew what acceptable behavior was. I would tell him how proud I was of all that he had learned so far, and that I knew he was going to learn this as well.

By the time he was five months old he was only chewing on his toys. He had learned to sit, “gimme five,” stay, come, speak, lie down, and whisper—a soft blow of air. He knew the difference between front door and back door, and we were starting to have to spell “walk” and “beach.” When I saw him start to do something that was unacceptable, all I had to do was ask him if he needed to have a discussion about it and he would stop what he was doing and give me those sad puppy eyes of apology. I would praise him and tell him I was proud of him and then off he would go tail and body wiggling with laughter back to his toys. He was losing his lab look and beginning to take on what I thought was a Rhodesian Ridge-back profile.

He was a happy puppy and eager to meet new people. He was curious and watched intently everything that went on in the house. Occasionally when I took him to the doggy day care down the road, he watched me so closely while I drove that I wondered if I would need to start hiding the car keys to keep him from “borrowing” the car at night. He got along great with my cats, Tink, and other dogs in the neighborhood. As soon as he saw squirrels in the yard he would fly through the doggy door to bark and chase them, and when he got too big to fit through the door on his own, he would bark excitedly for me to let him out while the squirrels sat on the fence or in a tree chattering for me to leave him inside as they called him names and teased him. Soon just the word “squirrel” would send him running to the back door to look for one.

When Trooper was about six months old, I got two examples of just how exceptional he was. The first was early in the month when I suffered a retinal tear. After my initial surgeries I had to spend the weekend with my head tilted to the left to keep a gas bubble injected into my eye in the right position as a sort of internal “Band-Aid.” I spent most of the weekend on the sofa. Trooper, except for when he needed to eat or go to the bathroom, refused to leave my side. Literally. He stayed on top of my right side almost the entire weekend, stretched out with his head resting on my shoulder. At that time he weighed almost 50 lbs.

The second thing that happened was when we went to Marc’s parents’ house for Christmas later that month. This was the first time that Trooper had ever seen them. Marc’s grandmother had lost a dog to cancer just two weeks prior and was very depressed. As I brought him into the house, I pointed her out to him. She was sitting on the couch by herself. I whispered into his ear that she had just lost her dog and was very sad. I told him that I wanted him to be especially nice to her that weekend. He looked up at me, then to her, and when I let him off his lead he walked right over to her and sat down on the floor next to her with his head on her knee. That was where he stayed for the next two hours while she stroked his head and ears.