7-16-09

Free strikes again: Giving a dog a home comes with a price

Free has struck again. This time, with a vengeance. I think it heard me talking about it last week.
We have a new dog. A “free” one.
I do need to back track a little bit.
We had a real pretty, all white, bird dog my son named Susie. She would run around the yard and hunt dragonflies and crickets all day long. When I was painting motorcycles, she would sit in the shop with me and curl up in the open storage space in the bottom of my rolling tool box.
Although she liked to eat my airbrush hose as I painted, I still liked her.
One day, in the old cemetary across from our house, a funeral was held. That evening, she was gone. Yes, I am blaming someone for taking Susie.
My son was heartbroken. We all were.
Last year, after a year had already gone by since Susie left our family, Ethan asked me, “When is Susie going to come back?”
Do you know how hard it is to tell a four-year-old that his dog is never going to come back?
Well, Leigh and I knew that we were going to have to find another dog.
Fast forward to about two months ago. An opportunity came along for us to adopt a German Shorthaired Pointer.
A young man who had good intentions of hunting a young dog found himself going off to college.
Good for him, good for us. I didn’t want to pay the premium for a bird dog and I prefer to “rescue” a dog anyhow.
After a few phone conversations, a delivery date was set and a rendezvous point was picked, The Pinkey family found itself with a new four-legged member of the family.
Ethan kept telling us that when we got a new dog, he was going to name it Susie. I asked him what its name would be if we got a boy dog.
With a little bit of thought and then a look as if to say, “Dad, there is a tree growing out of your head,” Ethan said, “Susie.”
But When the dog came to live with us, he already had a name. So for now, “Jack” is our dog and Ethan seems to like the name.
I forgot that even “free” dogs come with a price.
We had a hard time keeping Susie in our yard when she was with us... obviously... she is gone. This time around we decided to be proactive about the situation. A hidden fence system was purchased.
I had the honors of installing the system. After laying out the wire and realizing that we needed twice the amount, another trip to the hardware store was in order. While there, small wire nuts, more electrical tape and a new jug of small engine oil for mixing with gas to run the borrowed trenching equipment.
The “free” dog required a bag of food, a collar and, of course, dog bones.
Free. I forgot about the fine print.
I got the wire laid out around the yard, installed batteries in the collar and connected the power source. Everything was working.
After I attached the leash to Jack’s collar, I walked him around the yard and then toward the white flags that indicated the boundary of the “fence.”
I pointed to the flags as we got close and let him hear the beep that the collar was emitting.
Zapp! It shocked him when he walked to the edge.
After a couple of times of this he got the idea that the flags were not a good thing to get close to.
I let him off of the leash and he stayed. Not once did he go to the edge of the yard. I wouldn’t either if I had an electric shock device hooked to my neck!
So our free dog is loving life. He eats his food, hunts dragonflies and sleeps outside of his doghouse.
I do need to read the fine print a little better because I also missed the part about the “free” services that he offers back to us.
Jake has decided to clean up around the outside of the house by getting rid of shoes, forgotten toys and scratching old paint off of the side of the car when he greets us as we come home.
It’s OK, I guess. I needed new shoes and Nash was outgrowing the big wheel anyhow. I think I understand why we didn’t pick the dog up at the owner’s house though. There is a No Return policy on free.
Bryan Pinkey can be found buying rubbing compound, shoes and replacement toys or at bpinkey@nccox.com.