CSotD: Puppies, four-legged and two
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Rhymes With Orange introduces the concept of the bumpersticker asterisk, which we need more of.
It also plays on puppy-buyers' regret, which is well-established and which we need less of.
Faulkner wrote that "you don’t love because: you love despite; not for the virtues, but despite the faults.”
He was talking about Mississippi and family but he might as well have been speaking of mismatched dog-and-owner situations.
It's one thing to have a puppy tearing up the place: It is in the nature of puppies and if you don't either plan accordingly or accept your own carelessness, that's on you.
If things are still being destroyed at 12 or 18 months, though, something needs to be addressed.
But start with your choice of dog. A friend called once to ask my opinion of salukis, and I said they were beautiful but needed to be on leash because of their prey drive. Since she lived in the country and had livestock, I advised against it.
So she got a Jack Russell who proceeded to systematically eliminate her chicken flock. I'm not sure every Jack Russell would mistake chickens for weasels, but it's a foreseeable risk.
Hope for the best, be prepared for the worst, expect something in the middle.
For example, my dog's best friend is a greyhound and, like salukis, they aren't supposed to be trustable off-leash, but she goes off-leash at our unfenced park and doesn't bolt. Fact is, she's more trustworthy on that account than he is.
Some of it is on the dog, some of it is on the owner, but any mention of Jack Russells and cartooning brings to mind this Arlo & Janis from a dozen years ago, which echoes my feelings about the breed: I like the dog, but I don't have the energy.
The first Jack Russell I ever met was in about 1985, at the home of some friends of my then-gf. As the four of us sat and talked, he brought me his ball and I tossed it across the room and he brought it back and this went on while we talked until I realized that I'd been absent-mindedly tossing him the damn ball for 40 minutes with no diminution either of his interest or his energy.
That's nothing against them. It's just how they are.
Similarly, we've got owners of golden retrievers who walk them along the banks of the Connecticut River and will say something about hoping they stay dry, which brings forth gales of laughter. Goldens are lovely, affectionate dogs, but they can't resist water. It's just how they are.
All dogs have inherent traits and, while I'm definitely a supporter of rescue/adoption, it comes with a requirement to be able to scope out what went into the mix of that puppy, because you'll get it back in a proportion that may be hard to predict, some of which may emerge immediately, in puppyhood, some of which may pop out later, at around three, which is way into "loving despite" territory.
It's like the almost-certainly-apocryphal story of the starlet who said to George Bernard Shaw that it would be wonderful for them to have a child with her looks and his brains, to which he is said to have replied, yes, but what if it had his looks and her brains?
I've had Rhodesian ridgebacks since 1986 and each time one starts getting old, I think about other breeds, but quiet, solid hounds with good judgment who avoid mud and need no grooming always seem, for some reason, to win out again.
Still, as I grow older, I realize the day may come when I have to live somewhere with a weight limit on pets, so I do look at small breeds.
I've got several years before my current pal forces the issue of who's next, inshallah, but looking into his little African cousin, the basenji (here leading him in the race), led me to this site, and, if you can read their cautionary tales without cracking up in horrified laughter, well, go get yourself one.
If all breed fanciers were this honest, there would be fewer mismatches and fewer dog owners out there loving despite instead of because.
It's not on any chart
RWO gave me a satisfying burst of "Heh! I knew that!" By contrast, today's Edison Lee brought more of a sigh.
I consider myself lucky to have become a father the first time at 22 and the second at 26, because I was still a kid myself, enough to at least somewhat disappear into the games we played.
When we ran our cars on the oriental carpet, it was still a maze of highways, and playing hockey on the front porch with a leaf rake as goal worked just fine: The sound of the plastic puck hitting those metal tines was as satisfying as a flashing red light and a siren.
And even though, when we hitched all four dogs to the wagon and went racing down the alley, I ran alongside with a leash connected to the long, improvised wagon tongue instead of riding inside, it was still pretty exciting.
But the next time around, as a grandfather near 50, I knew we were playing games, and you can't un-know that. It was fun to watch them play and to show them new games, but I could only do so as a spectator, not as a player.
I had become like Wendy, entrusting Jane to Peter so she could fly off to Neverland and have her adventures while I stayed grounded and rooted, waving through the nursery window, glad for their adventure but wistful that I could no longer go along.
Fortunately, I think I did a pretty good job of raising kids who, like Jane, anticipated Peter's coming and could get those games of front-porch hockey going, even if they had the sense not to somehow wind up with four dogs at once.
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