His name is Simcha. It means Joy in Hebrew.
Four months ago, my wife and I were talking about a dog. "Oh, maybe we'll get another dog. Someday." Someday.
Growing up I never had a dog. My Mom was allergic to dog hair . . . an asthma reaction.
We had a bird.
Birds and dogs are not the same.
When I met Andrea, she had a miniature Schnauzer she had raised from a pup. Tasha. She was okay. A little fur-ball. And she was low maintenance.
After we married, the question of a dog didn't surface for years, until we moved to rural Columbia County, New York. The kids were young and growing. We had lots of open space and, essentially, no neighbors. Andrea went to the local pound just to look around. That's how Noah, at five months, came into our family. A beautiful, peaceful, low-maintenance Golden Lab. Perfect. Even better, Andrea took care of him.
Noah was a joy. A man could never have a better dog. We all loved him. And we were all devastated when cancer took Noah from us after thirteen years.
It's been twenty years since we lost Noah. We now live in a little ranch house in Western Connecticut. A nice yard - but not fenced. But the conversations about a dog had already begun. It was a process, right?
One day a few months ago, I was dumping yard waste at a recycling facility and, on the porch of the office, was a dog crate. "Free Dog Crate". It was a good size; in nice shape. Why not? So I brought it home and put it in the garage. A few days later we stopped at a red light on the way to church. The car in front of us had a "Rescue" license plate. "Save the Dogs" or some such slogan, with drawings of dogs all around the border. Interesting.
After church service that Sunday, Andrea was talking to a woman she knew. The woman was a dog rescuer. The woman suggested to Andrea that we check out a dog rescue facility near Hartford. "They're having an open house event this Saturday."
Yup.
Saturday, we took a drive. Just to check out the facility, right? Just in case we might want to get a dog. Someday. right? There were a couple of dozen dogs lined up on both sides of an outdoor driveway, looking cute and staying calm. We cruised. We looked. We kept moving.
But . . . there was a fenced-in area in front of the building, packed with frisky puppies.
Yup. You guessed it. We got waylaid.
It was the ears. That's what Andrea said. "I knew right away he was the one."
To say the rescue facility was like a used car lot may be doing a disservice. But once we showed any interest, those folks at the rescue facility were not going to let us leave without the "keys" to some hairy, breathing thing.
They asked us only one question. "Is your home puppy-proof?"
Our home? Puppy?
One blur later, we were in our car, headed home. Me in the front seat. Andrea and that furry-eared fellow in the back. A puppy.
We weren't even going to get a dog. We were only going to look, right?
But a puppy? At our age?
Just in case you don't know, there is a BIG difference between a dog and a puppy. Even beyond the fact that it takes a puppy more than a year to become a dog.
We were driving west on I-84, headed home. I was bug-eyed and fuzz-brained.
"We don't have any food. Or a bowl. Or anything."
That was four months ago. Simcha is still a puppy. Yesterday while he was on our deck, he chewed through a bungee cord holding a gate in place. Two days ago, I caught him chewing on the corner of a chair out on our deck. Later, he managed to get his big paws out of the crate, reached out and pulled a large, potted plant towards the crate. He must have had fun. There was dirt and plant debris all over the floor and all over his crate.
It could have been worse.
For only the one day he was in the rescue facility, Simcha was named Tick (all his siblings were named after insects). That name didn't last two hours. But he's lasted four months. And so have we. He's still a puppy. We're still learning. But one thing we know. Our house is not puppy proof. But neither were we.
Simcha. It means Joy in Hebrew. He definitely lives up to his name!
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