My New "Buddy"

As I mentioned before, married life has been wonderful, and I certainly recommend it if you’re marrying the right person for the right reasons. Of course figuring out if it’s the right person or if you have the right reasons can be a headache. One of the right reason(s) is a desire to love the other individual by doing things for them that you wouldn’t normally do yourself. Like getting a dog.

When I married my wife, I knew that she wanted a dog. I, too, had said that I wanted a dog but not until we got a house with a nice backyard where he could roam around like a wild deer outside of hunting season. I knew when I said this, however, that it would be a long time before that happened and thus would also put off getting a dog. The truth of the matter is that I didn’t really want to put the work into taking care of a dog. I barely put in work to take care of myself.

Knowing whom my wife is, I knew that I would need to prepare mentally for getting a dog and just dealing with it. The first obstacle I ran into, however, was that the wife and I disagreed on what kind of dog to get. I thought, “Well, if we’re going to get a dog it’s going to be a four-legged killing machine that obeys my every commend.” Katie replied, “But what about when the kids come along?” “They’ll be two-legged killing machines that obey my every commend.” I answered. I tried to convince her how cool it would be to have a 140 lbs Rottweiler chained against the wall- completely ripped and salivating from the mouth- with me throwing raw pieces of meat at him to eat while playing poker with the guys and smoking a Cuban cigar. You can probably guess that she wasn’t buying it. The kind of dog she wanted was kind, friendly, and playful. Sounds pretty boring to me.

One day, Katie was looking for a dog online and saw that a couple was giving away their golden retriever because of allergies in the family. She wanted to “just go take a look at it.” I knew exactly what that meant. We’re getting the dog. When we went to the house the family who owned the dog allowed us to play with him for a while in the backyard. The dog’s name was Buddy and he was about a year and a half old. The look on my wife’s face when we met him said it all, “He’s coming home.” When we brought him home a few days later, I gave him my Turner and Hooch tour of the house, showing him where he is NOT supposed to be and what he is NOT supposed to do.

I wouldn’t choose to name my dog “Buddy” but since he already knew a couple of basic commands like, “sit” and “get out of my face!” Katie and I decided to keep his name so we didn’t have to start over. Now Buddy isn’t the tough dog I was hoping for. He’s afraid of Murphy (my in-law’s dog; a Lab) and afraid of any strange noises (vacuum cleaners and the beeping noise that big trucks make when they back up). For a man, that’s a little disappointing but the wife is happy and that’s all that matters. If she wants a wimpy dog, she gets a wimpy dog.

Here are a couple of stories so far from owning Buddy for about a month. First, we were eating dinner and watching television. We are teaching Buddy not to beg for food. This particular night he didn’t beg and instead just sat down without us having to tell him. “Good job,” I thought. However, that soon changed. A few minutes later, out of the corner of my eye I noticed that he was monkey crawling towards the kitchen like he was in the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan. I didn’t care as long as he wasn’t bothering me. Suddenly Katie started yelling at him as if he were dropping a cherry bomb in the toilet. He actually had climbed up on the counter with his front paws and lifted- Tom Cruise Mission Impossible style- the roast my wife had made for dinner right out of the glass pan it was sitting in. He was in the process of putting it on the floor and starting to enjoy it as if it were meant for him when she ran in to the kitchen to stop him. Initially I was upset because I was still hungry and planned on eating some more, but I have to admit that it was pretty funny and truthfully, if I were a dog I would do the same thing.

The second story actually happened in the middle of me writing this blog. It was a Sunday evening and we were headed to Grace Group (home bible study) and decided to leave Buddy at the in-laws because there is more backyard space for him to run around. We left him not knowing there was a hole under a pile of wood that Buddy could get out of, and of course he did. He’s a people dog, and since there was no one around, he was probably lonely. (That’s what the wife likes to think. In reality, it’s probably the fact that he is a teenager in dog years and is still lucky enough to have his “maleness” intact and was therefore looking for somewhere to sow his wild oats.) He went missing for the rest of the night and my wife was extremely distraught over it. I guess this is good training for when Junior Jr. gets hit with his first DUI.

The next morning, she went over to her parents’ house to look for him some more, and it turned out that a neighbor took him in when he was running around in the front yard. When my father-in-law brought him into the house where Katie was getting ready to leave, Buddy had his tails between his legs and a look on his face similar to that of a teenager who knew that he had broken curfew and had no excuses. My wife is again happy, and therefore I am happy.

(Side note: I feel at this time I need to defend Megan Brown [the wife of my good friend Aaron Brown] because Aaron always wanted a British Bulldog named Meatball but Megan doesn’t like dogs and therefore, Aaron is not ever getting one. I don’t want to make Megan look like a bad spouse. It’s different when the man does the sacrificing because as Christian men, that’s what we are called to do. So, kudos to Aaron for keeping the wife happy. Of course Megan never pretended to want a dog before they got married, so Aaron knew what he was walking in to anyways. No worries, Megan, I have your back.)

Buddy has a good temperament. He doesn’t jump on people and he never barks (a big plus. I can’t stand dogs that bark obsessively for anything and everything.). He is playful, affectionate, and loves to play catch and chase cats. That’s two more points because I like playing catch with dogs, and I don’t like cats. I have no doubt that we’ll have many stories throughout the years with Buddy. Having a dog is a lot of work but a happy wife and more blogging material makes it worth it.