Charlie's Opening Night

As you will have gathered, Jerry was not keen on adopting a puppy quite yet. After all, with the kids in college and our beloved Lady in dog-heaven, he had moved up the mother attention-chain to first place! In addition, we were escaping the Portland rain and spending the winter in a rental house in Palm Desert. “Not fair to the owners to bring in a puppy” he said virtuously. However, when we had rented the house, we still had Lady and we had permission to have a dog. (Well, a puppy is a dog, right?) Furthermore, this house was perfect for puppy training: tile floors, only one area rug, fenced yard. What could possibly go wrong?

My first clue should have been in the long car ride from the breeder’s house back to Palm Desert, during which he never stopped chewing. By the time we reached the desert my hands, arms, ears, nose and chin were covered with tiny holes. My sleeves were more or less shredded, and he was trying to get to my hair and jewelry.

We made an emergency stop at Pet Smart to buy dozens of chew toys. (I came to wish that I had invented that annoying little squeaker-thing that’s in all of them.) We tried the giant carrot on him right away, but he seemed to prefer skin.

Our plan was to crate him with lots of chew toys – he’d love it in there!- and only let him out when we could supervise. If he chewed us, we would say “NO” and put him in his crate. When he chewed his toys, we would praise extravagantly! As they say in the One Minute Manager, we would catch him doing something right! Same thing with house-breaking. Stay in the crate, then a quick trip outside to pee, poop, and be praised. Maybe we’d start our own dog school when we had him perfected?

We hadn’t counted on the howling.

Crating aficionados clearly do not regard the crate as a “cage”. Charlie did. We placed the crate next to our bed, so we could get up quickly if he woke up and had to go out. Unfortunately, he never went to sleep. He only quieted down if I stuck my fingers in the cage for him to chew. We moved the crate to our bathroom, the laundry room, and finally the kitchen – but we could hear him everywhere, and he never stopped howling. Then we remembered there was a $25 fine if a neighbor heard your dog barking.

We immediately waffled on the crate. (Well,it was 2:00 AM.) We couldn’t let him out in our bedroom because it was filled with problematic chewables and pee-places (bedspread, curtains, upholstered chair, pillows, rug). So we stuck him in the tiled kitchen where the only thing breakable was a magnificent crystal chandelier which he couldn’t possibly reach. We loaded the room with his toys, made a soft little bed for him, and moved the kitchen table over to block the door. He was happy! We slept! After all, there was no hard rule that one had to do the crate-thing, was there? He was safely and happily “containerized” in the kitchen!

We woke up in the morning with bright sun. It was 9:00 and we hadn’t heard a peep from Charlie. “Poor lamb must have been really tired”, I said. Then we heard a sort of scuffling, followed by the sound of ripping. Was he tearing up his bed? We jumped up and went to look.

We found him in the middle of the kitchen, sunlight sparkling from the crystal above him, joyfully chewing tiny bits of wallpaper. If he had just pulled it loose in one giant hunk, we might have been able to glue it back in place. But no, he had yanked yards of it off the wall, and then shredded it to remarkably uniform, miniscule bits. In denial, I climbed over the table and bent to examine the shreds, saying “people do assemble puzzles with more pieces than this”. Then I picked up Charlie and stood, smashing my head into the chandelier. Crystal prisms, beads, and chain parts flew around the kitchen, skidding and banging into appliances, tile, and cabinets. Pounds of crystal dust cascaded down amongst the shreds of wallpaper and onto the poop and pee he had thoughtfully left next to the refrigerator.

I burst into tears, and Jerry said helpfully, “I make this a $2000 morning.” This would prove to be low.

Next week, we seek professional dog training.

Welcome to Wagging Tales!

I have a very high opinion of dogs, and by extension dog-owners too, for our furry friends have trained us well. Every dog-to-human bonding is unique, but the unconditional love is universal. Who can come home to a joyous dog and not feel a heart-lift? And who can see a person interacting with their dog, and not smile? In our family we have known and loved Bonzo, Sissy, Heidi, Kim, Bandit, Lady, and we now have Charlie. In this blog, I will tell you some of our favorite dog tales – and I would love to hear from you as well. For if you are here, we, too, have a bond.

Choosing Charlie

Our golden retriever, Charlie, is now six and a very good boy. But it seems like only yesterday that we were picking out an adorable but wildly mischievous puppy.


After our beloved Lady died, I cried for three weeks and then a severe case of puppyitis crept into my soul. I was drawn irresistibly to the internet in search of golden retrievers. I had to conduct my illicit surfing in the middle of the night so my husband Jerry wouldn’t catch me. (He said we “weren’t ready”.) My nightly sojourns became more frequent and then came the phone calls. Finally I was asked to take a long car trip. At this point, it was only fair to let Jerry in on my secret life.


Luckily for me, my mother-in-law, Elsa, was visiting. When Jerry said, “Over my dead body” and other spicy epithets, dear Elsa told him to button it, “Carolee NEEDS a dog!” Right!!!


The breeder had advertised reddish-gold golden retrievers – like our precious Lady – and he had four females. So we drove 150 miles from Palm Desert to Palos Verdes, through L.A. rush hour traffic. This definitely did not improve Jerry’s view of our errand -- but what could he say in front of his mother? After five hours of stress-filled stop-and-go (during which I could picture the four females being adopted at the rate of one per hour), we arrived. Our reward? Twelve adorable puppies, yes, all still available, romping across a beautiful lawn overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Jerry tried a feeble, “We don’t have to pick one today, you know.” Right, we could pick TWO!


We zeroed in on the four girls, and found one to be particularly appealing. She was smart, athletic, and energetic like our Lady had been, but perhaps a bit more independent, not quite as willing to be held. Then I started noticing a playful, blond doggie that kept dancing around my feet, darting away from us and then back, as if to say “Look at me, Mommie!” I picked up this little guy and he nuzzled me, licked me, gently chewed on my hand, and immediately stole my heart. Suddenly I could see the wisdom of not getting a female – the poor dear could never compare with Lady. We needed a whole new doggie experience – a blond boy! – it felt right.


Elsa echoed my thoughts and said, “This is a precious dog. Why not try a boy this time?”


Jerry, ever procedural and not quite with us yet, said, “If you aren’t sure, we could go think it over.”


“Honey”, I replied, “Who needs to think?”


Who knew these words would come back to haunt me?

Please come back next week to hear about Charlie’s unusually lengthy puppy training. In the meantime, check out a terrific blogsite about Max, a very talented golden retriever.  http://maxthegoldenretriever.com/  Thank heavens he is not in the dog show with Charlie on March 6. More later.