The inner conflict was gone -- the one that caused me such discomfort while I decided whether or not to adopt another dog, after I lost Molly. I had struggled over that decision. Of course -- I say of course as if the following is universal truth -- after I did what I knew I would do all along, it was gone. The struggle, the grief, the sadness were gone.
So why did it take me so painstakingly long?
Here’s another question. A better one. Why was the next decision, which should have been even more labored, made on impulse as if it were a stroll on Emerald Isle?
Three days after I adopted Dolly and drove her home, I picked up Dolly’s brother Louie.
So then there were two -- two puppies with big paws. I had gone from Molly’s tractable fifty pounds to Dolly and Louie’s mischievously rowdy 200 pounds.
Had I had a senior moment?
I wondered if the Dog Whisperer had a map to North Carolina.
Funny how things happen. The weekend after adopting Dolly, a half dozen friends and I were sitting along the beach when Jeff of Pine Knoll Shores, said, “Two dogs are better than one.”
At the time, Dolly and her sister Gracie, who Claire, of Atlantic Beach, had adopted that week, were playing and plopping with another sister, Ariel. Over and over, they were playing and plopping, playing and plopping, as puppies do.
I leashed up all three and walked them (or vice versa) on the beach. Forgetting that each puppy would soon sprout from her 18 pounds to a hundred or so, I thought Jeff’s words made sense.
So, being an impulsive man, I led the puppies back to the group, pulled out my cell phone, and called Tonya, whose Yellow Lab had had the litter, “Could I come over?”
In Tonya’s backyard, Dolly and I sat as the remaining five male puppies played around us. A couple of them clearly didn’t like Dolly’s new shinny collar. But there was one fellow who hung around us the whole time. He seemed comfortable with me and with Dolly. When he and Molly plopped together, that did it.
Hello, Louie.
I could hear Louie singing to Dolly.
Hello Dolly, this is Louie, Dolly. You’re lookin’ swell, Dolly … .
Molly, my previous dog, was nine months old when we got together. So it had been a long time since I’d had a weeks old puppy around. Now I had two, two with big paws and avaricious appetites for chewing on almost everything but the expensive toys I tossed around them.
And goodbye rugs. I don’t know what was in them that Louie liked so much, but I sent the rugs to storage, except the one that Louie had chewed napless in a couple of strategic spots.
In an effort to save my furniture, I drove the thirty miles to the closest PetSmart to buy a selection of yucky sprays that the puppies were supposed to detest. One in particular was so detestable that whatever I sprayed, they ate.
This adventure was going to be fun.
