That time we had a dog for a month.

I told my kids for years that we would get a dog when I was done having babies. We’d watched our friends suffer through puppy-hood with babies still in the house and we did NOT want to do the same. You can’t put a diaper on a dog. Well, 12 years after our last baby, I finally made good on my promise. I agreed to an outside dog, so we prepped the yard; did a ton of work filling in the trampoline hole, planted sod, put up a fence so he’d have a big enough space to roam around but not be able to tear apart the whole yard. We turned the playhouse into a dog house. Insulated and huge with a front porch to boot, this was going to be a dog palace.

Levi researched dogs for months, trying to find one that could be outside and that would be relatively independent (ie. not a golden retriever who need lots of love and attention) and one that was older, not a puppy. He wanted to train the dog to do tricks, so it needed to be a smart dog. Levi was by far the most excited and did quite a bit of the work in the yard to get ready for the dog. He decided a Border Collie would be a good fit. After a few failed attempts at the dog shelters we found a 9 month old Border Collie on Craigslist at a cattle ranch up in the foothills. So we drove up past Hidden Springs to check him out. It was way out there. We had to wait at the gate while the owners rode down in their 4 wheeler to open the gate.

Chasing the 4 wheeler were three dogs, one of which was Tucker. We followed him as he raced alongside the 4 wheeler back up to the main house area. When we got out of the car, Tucker was friendly and social and relatively calm. The owners told us he was basically a failed sheep dog. He didn’t have it in him to chase the cattle and nip at their heels. He just wanted to play and love on his owners and be loved back. We felt like he was a perfect fit, since he’d already been an outside dog, so we took him home. The kids were in heaven. I was apprehensive but he was so sweet and calm that I felt ok about it. We hoped 9 months was old enough.

For a few days, we thought we were incredibly lucky. He never barked, would obey a little, though he hadn’t been officially trained, and he was just sweet as could be. He just wanted to be loved and petted. But the longer we had him the more we realized we had picked the one Border Collie on the planet who was a golden retriever at heart. Sweet but needy, Tucker didn’t want to be in his dog palace and yard, he wanted to be with us. So he climbed over the fence. And as you can see from the picture above, that’s not a safe fence for a dog to climb over. He was going to hurt himself, so instead of being able to roam free in his yard, we had to stake him so he wouldn’t jump the fence and head for the bunny on the other side of the yard-which he did whenever we let him out. Knowing that Collies are super smart and that they need lots of mental stimulation we spent tons of money trying to find toys and things that would occupy him so he wouldn’t wine and be lonely while the kids were at school. I liked Tucker, more than I thought I would, but I was not going to play with him all day. Well, none of the toys worked for long and that’s when the digging started. He dug holes all over the new grass we had planted for him and tore up all the sod he could reach. He started digging up the rock path that I had spent so much time and effort and muscle on creating. In planting the new grass, we created a bit of a drainage problem that Tucker uncovered for us when he dug up a hole in the low part of the yard and started drinking from the well he’d dug. Rock and I got nothing done for two weeks as we tried to keep the dog safe, entertained and out of trouble. He was also becoming a lot more wild and jumpy-he is still a puppy after all. And it’s not fun to have a dog who’s been digging in mud jump up on you. Liberty, who had been so attentive to him in the beginning, was now starting to avoid him because he wrecked her clothes every time she got near him. And even with all of that, he was so sweet. He just wanted us to love him and pet him. He adored attention. I felt terrible, knowing that he was just bored and needed more attention than we could give him, but knowing that I am not ready for an indoor dog at this point. Dog training, which Rock and Levi wanted to do themselves became a more immediate priority, so we looked into dog training, we looked into building a taller fence, we looked at having a french drain put in to deal with the drainage issues. We looked at all the options to help make this work for Tucker and for us.

We went into this thinking (foolishly) that the kids would be around to help with a lot of the work of owning a dog, but it quickly became clear that Levi was way too busy with school and cross country and friends to really spend much time with the dog and even Liberty, who did quite a bit, was not enough to balance it out. Rock was doing most of the walking, poop scooping and training. Unfortunately, I’m not a dog person. I did my best. I made trip after trip to Petco to find bones for him to chew on instead of the playhouse, I filled kong ball after kong ball to keep him occupied. I tried to love him and pet him and give him what he needed, even if it was often through the fence because every time I got near him, he’d jump up on me and well, that bothers me. Ultimately, it was Rock who decided it was time to find Tucker a new home. Most likely an indoor home where he could be loved and adored and petted all day by a family who could give him what we couldn’t. After doing all the work and seeing what kind of time commitment and restraints it put on our time and freedom and with the damage being done every day to the yard, Rock and I both felt like it was the right call. The kids were sad, but they realized that this wasn’t a good fit. We listed him on several sites but didn’t get any takers, so today Rock took him to the Humane Society where they have a really high rate of adoptions. He is such a sweetheart, I know he will get snatched up quickly.

Will we get another dog? We don’t know yet. I think we’ve all decided that for the stage our family is in right now, an indoor dog is the only kind that would get any attention and I’m not sure yet that I can do that. That being said, it will surprise many of you to know that it made me sad to give Tucker away. Yes, I even cried. I never thought I could come to love a dog, but Tucker helped me get a taste of what it’s like to really care for an animal. I really wanted him to be happy. And let me tell you, “the puppy dog look” is REAL. And even though it was only for a month, (and even though he destroyed our yard and ate our playhouse :-), I’m grateful for the chance to have had him as a member of our family for just a little bit.