I have a secret training partner. Her name is Happy and she always makes me happy. But before you start thinking that you typed in the wrong URL like www.happyending.com (and no, I have not checked if this is a real URL but I bet it just might be) let me explain. Happy is a 4-year-old Golden Retriever and we like to run together.
But that’s not really what makes me happy even though it makes her really happy. She can be a bit of a pain to run with. Today on our short run (4-miles) she got into some mud and thistles, which I’m still trying to get out of her fur. She also likes to chase rabbits, birds (I don’t think she’s figured out the entire flying thing yet as she always seems to believe any bird is just one hop away from being caught) and her current favorite, sniffing others runner’s or walker's crotches.
All this combined with her complete fear of horses and cows and complete lack of fear of cars, bikes, trains and bigger mean dogs always makes for challenging run. Not to mention that she has recently taken to pooping right next to the trail, which means I’d probably win any race that included carrying a plastic sack of steaming dog poop for about 4 miles.
We got Happy as a puppy from a breeder who also breeds avalanche dogs for my local ski patrol. Now avalanche dogs have to love the outdoors, they have to be fit, and pretty smart, and most of all they have to love to be with people. Happy is all of these things. However what I forgot about avalanche dogs is that first and foremost they have to love to dig. In fact a good avalanche dog is bred to dig.
And boy does Happy love to dig. My back yard currently resembles the surface of the moon if the moon’s surface was a bit more Swiss cheese like with giant holes and craters. In fact there is one hole that I have now filled up about fourteen times that she keeps excavating. To any Wallmart executive reading this, I believe that I not am now very close to having a first rate railroad tunnel to China in my backyard for your entire Asian product needs.
No, the real reason that Happy makes me so very happy is much more subtle.
Unlike anybody else I know, Happy never has any other place that she needs to be. She is completely happy and satisfied to be with me. She’s never expecting or taking a phone call during our run. She’s never rushing to another meeting or dinner. When we are together, her world is all about me.
And unlike anybody else I know, Happy never complains or makes any sort of fuss. I will get up at some crazy hour like 4:30 a.m. to go for an early morning run and she’s waiting by the door ready to go with me as if I had just offered her a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for fame and fortune. Never mind that it is freezing cold and dark outside. She’s completely happy to head out into the dark and cold with me.
And unlike anybody else I know, Happy will always come when I call. No matter how smelly or disgusting the unidentified chunk of road kill or dog urine she happens to be sniffing is, she always comes running to me when I call her name. I’ll yell out her name, and she’ll look up from the smelly treat, pin her ears back and come charging down the path to be next to me.
I grew up with a much different dog. My childhood pet was a tiny little apricot toy poodle named Tootsie, which my folks purchased for my grandma, but fell in love with and kept as the family pet. Don’t fret, we got granny a different white poodle named Suzy that ate like a goat. My grandma discoveredthat Suzy loved to drink coffee with her cake.
Yes the dog ate cake and drank coffee from her doggy bowl. This was not so much of a problem as was the fact that when she drank the coffee, she tended to get her long ears soaked in it. It wasn’t too long before Suzy had unsighlty coffee stained ears. To solve this problem, my grandama would tie Suzy’s ears together above her head with a dew rag so that the dog looked and acted like a fury wired gang banger from the South side of Chicago.
But this problem was nothing compared to the issues that we had with Tootsie. Tootsie was not the sharpest puppy in the litter. She may have been the cutest, but she certainly wasn’t the smartest.
To begin with she had a perpetually itchy butt, which meant that she loved to drag her ass across the floor using only her front feet. When she did this, she got what looked like a huge satisfied smile across her face. She especially seemed to really relish this interesting habit when my mom gave dinner parties for the neighbors. Now I was just a small kid so the sight of the dog dragging her butt across the carpet in a room full of neighbors didn’t strike me as unusual, but my Mom was horrified while my dad stood dumbstruck by the scene.
This was really only a petty quirk compared to the time that my friend's dog Midnight (also a poodle) decided that the stuffed toy I had won at a local fair resembled something akin to the female of the canine species. I was a bit older and Steve and I had just returned from trying to impress one of my first dates with my prowess at throwing rings over bottles at a local fair. I had indeed succeeded in winning a giant stuffed panda, which I had left in the living room at Steve’s house while we went with the girls to the kitchen to meet Steve’s parents.
When we returned to the living room, Midnight (named so because he was black as night) had apparently succeed in wooing the stuffed panda with his poodle charm to give up her, or perhaps his, virginity. The dog was extremely busy going at it with the panda to the horror of both Steve’s parents and my first date.
As Steve is very Italian, I suspect the dog had plied the panda with his father’s homemade wine before charming it with a doggy debonair gaze and substantial manly or is it doggy wit…which was now on full display for all to see.
Midnight just smiled and seemed to suggest to me horrified young date that she could be next if she played her cards right. The panda just took it with a grin that seemed to say it needed a cigarette.
Tootsie never met Midnight. I suppose this was a good thing since Tootsie was no giant panda, plus she was fixed. But Tootsie did have her share of other troubling habits.
Number two on that list was her propensity to run away. Whenever I opened the front door she shot out like a lightening bolt on her way to Nebraska. Somehow the lack of food or shelter never bothered her. I can’t begin to tell you how many hours I spent wondering my neighbor yelling her name, and looking for her.
And that’s why my secret training partner always makes me happy. Happy doesn’t drag her butt across the carpet, she never drinks coffee, she always comes when I call, and I’ve never even so much as seen her even wink at a giant stuffed panda.