Just One Shot

I’m not sure I was emotionally ready for another dog. My little buddy crossed the Rainbow Bridge just a few months ago. But somebody dumped this sweet girl and her sibling, and she needed a home. And it was heartbreaking hearing Ella say, “Daddy, we don’t have a pet anymore. Gus is dead.”

So we agreed to foster this sweet girl. I could tell within five minutes that there was a 103% chance this dog was never leaving our home. And I was right. So we adopted her. Just a tip – Don’t let a four-year-old name the dog. There isn’t a spec of any color but white on this dog and Ella named her Rainbow.

I still miss Gus. I feel like I’m cheating on him every time I give Rainbow a belly rub, which is approximately every seven minutes. I’m not sure how long it takes to fully let go. On some level, I probably never will. But Rainbow needed a loving home and lots of belly rubs. I hope Gus can forgive me.

Raising a puppy is a lot like playing golf. The scenery is beautiful, but everything else is frustrating. Golf courses have lush green backdrops with rolling hills. Puppies have cute faces and plush, soft coats and those puppy dog eyes that melt your heart when they look up at you. But golf is incredibly frustrating and so is living with a puppy.

My golf game mostly consists of replacing divots that almost reach China, looking for wayward tee shots in the woods, and drinking beer. But there is a saying that it only takes one really good shot to keep you coming back. I can personally confirm this saying. I still play golf, but I haven’t hit a really good shot since the fall of 1998. That 370-yard bomb down the middle of the fairway (yes, I have witnesses) is why I’m still playing almost 25 years later.

Raising a puppy is exactly the same. I realize now that we were spoiled with Gus in many ways. When Gus was causing trouble as a puppy, he weighed eight pounds. The pain in the butt factor is limited when you only have eight pounds to deal with. Rainbow is a sixty-pound puppy. That’s a lot of puppy. Gus could be a stubborn punk, but I realize now that Bulldog-proofing a house is simple. All you have to do is make sure every loose item in the house is at least two feet off the floor. I would wager good money that no bulldog ever won the high jump in the all-breed Canine Olympics. Greco-Roman wrestling? No contest. But bulldogs don’t excel in anything that requires verticality of any sort.

Most days Rainbow causes trouble and frustrates me to the point of having to take out a loan to wire money to the family swear jar. Rainbow is hell-bent on jumping up on the couch and other people. And we can’t think of leaving any food on the table because she can (and will) get up there and eat whatever is sitting on the table. We didn’t have this issue with Gus. He wasn’t a jumper. I think this was more due to laziness than discipline, but still. And while Gus did like to chew things that didn’t belong to him, he never took them to the backyard. Our backyard looks like a landfill full of remnants of child’s toys and stolen shoes and socks.

But then Rainbow hit that one shot.

Audrey is finally able to get up and down from the couch on her own now. It takes quite a bit of work, but she can do it. Last week, Audrey and I were the only ones home, and I was in the kitchen making her lunch when I heard her start to cry. I ran over to the couch to see Audrey struggling to get up on the couch. She had one leg up and was trying to pull her torso over, but the struggle was getting the best of her. I started to walk around the back of the couch to help her, but Rainbow beat me to the punch. She quickly ran over to the couch, placed her head under Audrey’s hip, and pushed her up on the couch. Then, she aligned her body to run parallel to the couch to give Audrey a buffer in case she fell back down. Then, as Audrey rolled over and placed her weight on the couch cushion, Rainbow sat down next to the couch with this look on her face that said “I’m not going anywhere until I’m sure you are okay.”

That bomb down the middle of the fairway will keep me coming back forever.

P.S. Raising a toddler is a lot like golf as well, but more on that later.

Dear Rainbow,

In this country, a standard greeting is a handshake or a hug, not a belly rub. You do not have to roll over on your back any time someone enters your presence.

Also, you apparently didn’t get the memo – play time is not between 3 am and 4 am.