CHAPTER
EIGHT
SCRUGGS
MEETS THE “KIDS”—YOU WANT US TO DO WHAT?
(32ND installment, Scruggs and Samantha, by Mary de la
Pena)
The afternoon of the temperament and bonding meeting
between Scruggs and my other two dogs was very hot by the time I attempted to
load both dogs into the SUV.
Loading them was nearly disastrous. We were a scrum
of dogs, leashes, under-the-breath curses, and near-death trips and falls as I
tried to load the dogs. Fina was pulling on the leash in her effort to be
first. She didn’t know where we were going, only that we were going somewhere;
wherever that place was, she wanted to be first in line.
Tara was more reticent. She sensed I was distracted and somewhat
apprehensive. That was all she needed to know to put her on hyper-alert. She went into guard mode, which meant she
kept trying to put herself in front of me to ward off the unseen danger she
knew was lurking somewhere near. I was
left to twirl, push, and pull the dogs toward the SUV.
As soon as I opened the rear lift-gate with the
automatic opener, Fina rushed headlong to jump into the rear compartment.
Unfortunately for her, her leash stopped her mid-leap. She crashed down just short of her target,
causing me to trip over her as I tried to encourage Tara to jump into the car.
With Fina thrashing around on her back, tangled in the leash, Tara decided
there was no way she was going anywhere near the area causing the other dog’s
distress. She threw her 116 pounds against the leash and pulled her collar off
her neck. With nothing to stop her she bolted back to the safety of the front
door, and sat firmly on the welcome mat, rolling her eyes at me when I called.
Fina, on the other hand, finally disentangled herself
from the leash and jumped gracefully into the rear area of the SUV. However, whenever I pushed the button to
close the lift gate, she jumped out of the car and ran around it in her
self-devised game of chase. As the game continued, I caught her leash, led her
to the rear of the vehicle, and again opened the lift gate for her to jump in,
only to have her jump out again as soon as she saw the door start to close.
In and out, around and around we went. Finally, I
just stopped.
“Enough,” I said.
“Enough, you two!”
Fina froze in her tracks, staring hard at me.
“Tara , come,” I said
with a deep growl to my voice.
“Both of you,” I said. “Enough. Fina, stay. Tara, come!”
Fina, who really had never learned the word “stay,”
flopped down on her back instead, waving her legs in the air in complete
submission. Tara
slinked toward me, her stump of a tail pressed hard against her tan butt.
I pressed the remote for the lift-gate, glaring at
Fina, daring her to move. She continued to wiggle on her back, legs straight up
in the air. Tara froze watching me intently.
“Both of you,” I said in my commanding voice. “Get in
the car, now.”
Fina flipped over and immediately jumped in the car.
Tara came toward the car and danced at the rear, pleading with me to help her
into the car.
“Don’t give me that, Tara ,”
I said. “You can jump. Get in the car.”
With one more pleading glance back at me, she rocked
on her hind legs a few times. Then, with a clumsy arching leap, she landed in
the rear compartment of the SUV.
“Now, stay, you two,” I commanded as I pressed the
button. Neither one moved while the rear
door closed, safely locking them inside.
Exhausted from the effort, I again wondered if I
could handle three large dogs. These two were hard enough, with one of them
trained, and the other slightly trained. Scruggs was clearly a street dog with
no training at all. He needed calm consistency, not emotional tirades.
I closed my eyes in silent prayer and prayed for
strength. As I did so, I felt my resolve
to adopt Scruggs and Samantha again come coursing back into me.
I wish I could say that my two dogs were better at
the shelter, but of course they weren’t.
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