A Boy and His (Three-Legged) Dog

Pancho the overgrown puppy is having the time of his life at my house.  He jumps into the pool approximately every fifteen minutes, which means he stays wet all day long.  So he got a haircut yesterday (a shave, really, since he can't stand on three legs long enough to brush his hair out), and he wears that neckerchief with a jaunty swagger.  I admire him, my damaged dog, for the simple reason that he doesn't mope around focusing on what he's missing.  He's over it.  I find myself wanting to be like Pancho.

The dachshunds have grudgingly accepted him.  They wouldn’t look me in the eye for the first two days he was here, but a large plate of cheese and pastrami scrambled eggs fixed that situation.

Bella the crazy, tainted pussy probably will be pissed forever.  She jumped onto the kitchen counter and punched a hole in the package of beautiful pasta I brought home from Italy just to let me know how much she hates me.

Following is my kid’s version of Pancho’s story:

“What happened?” Mom asks.

“Pancho just lost his leg,” I choke.

“You’re joking,” she says with a chuckle while she fills my bowl with more soup.

I hold up the sweaty phone to show her the text. I feel sad and angry at the same time. Not angry at his new owners, but angry at myself. The best dog in the world just lost his leg because of a careless mistake to put him in the bed of a truck.  What were they thinking? More importantly, what was I thinking letting them have my dog, my best friend?

She slides the bowl away as if she can read my mind. There is nothing I can do. It was my decision to let him stay in the mountains with them.  Images run through my mind of a sad dog that drags through life because he is missing a leg.

A few days pass, and he returns to his house in the mountains. We decide to go visit him and see how he is recovering. I walk around the corner of the house expecting to see him lying in pain.

But boy, was I wrong.

He dashes around the corner and jumps straight onto my chest. He kisses me like he thought he would never see me again. I stand up and look straight at him. He looks at me and settles down. He’s a few feet away, but I know what he’s thinking.  Any sudden movements, and I was sure to be attacked with more licks to the face. I slowly raise my hand and creep over to him.  He knows what’s going on.  I start sprinting the other way in hope for a game of good old-fashioned chase.  But I look over my shoulder and see him sitting there with his head tilted. I sit down on the grass and he trots over to me. He rests his head on my knee as if to say, “Can’t you see I’m missing a leg?”

I pat his head while tears stream down my face.  He immediately answers with a lick to tell me it’s not my fault.  So as we sit on the field watching the kids play, I know who my best friend is.

I've Been Called Worse!

I can now officially be called the crazy dog lady. I have a new one, a three-legged Australian Shepherd named Pancho who is the reason I cry when I see those Pedigree commercials about rescue dogs.

But Pancho isn’t a rescue dog. Not really.

About this time last year, my son began begging for an Australian Shepherd puppy. He even had him picked out. He found a puppy online, called the breeder, and found out that Pancho the puppy was, indeed, available. All that he needed for the puppy to be his were a major credit card and mom’s consent.

We already had three dachshunds and a crazy-ass Bengal cat. And in the past, he’d begged for a Chinese Water Dragon and quickly returned it. I told him no.

A couple of weeks later, I was awakened by an Australian Shepherd puppy licking my face. My ex had purchased little Pancho and brought him to my kid.

Here’s a tip for all the divorced people of the world. Hell, it’s a tip for all the people of the world: don’t buy a dog for another person’s house. If you buy a dog, it’s yours.

My kid left for school that morning, and little Pancho looked up at me as if to say, “Looks like it’s just the two of us. What’s the plan?”

I drove the puppy to the condo complex my ex was developing and put him in the clubhouse. Then I sent my ex a text that read, “Your dog is in your clubhouse.”

His reply: “That’s our son’s birthday present.”

My response: “His birthday is not for four months. Try again.”

Pancho lived with my ex for a day or so, spending his days in a crate in the garage. I drove my son over to the house in the afternoons to walk Pancho. Then the dog was sent to obedience school for two weeks. But the thing about obedience school is that it only works if the owner participates. Pancho’s owner did not.

My ex found Pancho another home about two hours away from us. My kid was sad, but he knew the people, so he understood that it was a clear case of making the best of a bad situation.

But then the situation worsened. A couple of months later, my kid got a text from the man saying that Pancho had broken his leg and that he might have to be put to sleep. He read the text aloud to me as I was cooking dinner.

I laughed out loud. I thought it was a joke. But then I looked up at my kid. He was crying.

I called the man. He had put Pancho the puppy into the back of his pickup truck for a trip to the vet. Pancho jumped out of the truck and broke his leg so badly it couldn't be fixed.

“But he’s not a horse,” I said to the man.

“That’s what the vet said. He doesn’t know if it can be fixed, but he went crazy when I suggested putting the dog down.”

That was last summer. Pancho healed quickly, and he got around on three legs very, very well. In fact, he’s quite a handful on just those three legs. I know, because my son and I took him to the beach with us in January. I carried that heavy dog up and down the stairs for two days before I realized he’s quite capable of managing stairs on his three legs.

Two weeks ago, I got a text. “We don’t want Pancho any more. He keeps eating our other dog's $70 radio collars. Do you want him?”

Yes. I did. For starters, I couldn’t bear to see my kid hurt again. And I knew that the three-legged Pancho might not fare so well in the rescue dog system. But maybe the bigger reason is that he’s another someone that my ex pursued and then decided he didn’t want. Like me, he got terribly hurt in the process. Pancho, as it turns out, is a kindred soul.

Call me crazy.