4. Maxine’s Creed

I found out there have been other “A Dog’s Creed” poems and essays on the Internet, but this is something I thought about today, as I was weeding. If Maxine could write, I imagined she would have written something like this:

Maxine’s Creed

I was a puppy when I left my Doggie Mommy to be a part of your family. You are my family now, and my masters.  This is my promise:

I promise to love you and always be loyal to you. It is in my blood as a dog, and bred into my species to love my human masters. Please love me a little in return. Please do not abuse me, beat me, or leave me alone in the rain. Give me a little space at the foot of the bed, a little rug to lie on, and I will be happy.

If I make a mistake, please do not punish me too much. I am a dog. It takes a little more time for me to learn things. If you forgive me, I will always forgive you, for it is in my nature to always love and forgive you.

I promise to always greet you when you come home from work. Do not leave me alone too long, for I will miss you.

If you teach me to behave and how to act properly, I promise to never harm you or anyone in the family. Please do not beat me, because I will be sad at disappointing your expectations. Please do not make me into a vicious animal, because it is not in my nature. Teach me how to love every one in the family.

Feed me and take care of me, and I will protect your house and this family forever, even if I have to die protecting you.  All I ask is that you keep me clean and free of fleas, ticks and other vermin, and take care of my health.  Maybe a bone or a chewie once in a while on top of my dinners would be great. I love ice cream too. Did I say Mommy once gave me Long Johns and I love them too?

I will give you constant joy and companionship. Just play with me and pet me regularly in return.

I will give you all the best years of my life. So when I am too old and in too much pain from sickness, let me go gently.

When I go, try to be at my side and be the last face I see, because for me Heaven is playing with you, my master, and chasing mongoose, in a big, grassy field, forever and ever.

These are little things to ask, for I am a dog, with a very little soul compared to my human masters. But I love my masters very much and will give all I have for you, my masters. So please treat me gently and I promise I will live up to my creed.

3. Fireworks and Dogs in Hawai’i

Every year the controversy used to come up, a public debate more heated than the Democrat vs. Republican political divide, more fraught with accusations and counter-accusations than the Pro-life vs. Women’s Reproductive Rights issue, more heated than the emotionally charged football rivalry between BYU and University of Hawaii.

I’m talking about the issue of New Year’s Eve fireworks. Personally, I’m on the side of banning them altogether. It’s just gotten out of hand. I’m no Fresh-Off-The-Boat Mainland transplant who has no idea of what this tradition used to mean to local kids (and kids at heart), but let’s face it. It just got out of hand. And in the case of pet owners, it’s a complete disaster.

I admit it. I grew up with and played with firecrackers. It, indeed, was part of our cultural heritage, as some supporters of fireworks declare. Working class communities all over Hawaii went on a yearly binge, especially during New Year’s, but also on the Fourth of July, turning what was once a Chinese tradition of “busting” firecrackers to scare away the demons into a frenzy of firecracker popping that left the streets and yards with shredded red firecracker paper, scattered like withered plumeria tree leaves inches deep.

Ho, yeah. Good fun, bus’ da firecrackas.

However, over the years, this antic tradition has gradually morphed into something really, really sick and dangerous, so dangerous but so inbred in our society that we can’t even see it for what it is: temporary group insanity.

…“For a cultural tradition”???? Is it worth the damage to property and life and limb to preserve this “cultural tradition?” Let’s see. We have collectively used so much fireworks in recent years past that we have a momentary smog condition that rivals Los Angeles at the height of its air pollution problem in the 1970s. The EPA would have declared our entire state a disaster area if they took air samples on New Year’s Eve. Firefighters and police officers are strained past their capacities because of arsonists and pyromaniacs given free rein to start brush fires, set houses on fire, and burn down private and public property. Emergency rooms are packed to the gills with people coming in with blown off limbs, burns and even critical injuries from illegal use of fireworks. People with asthma and other lung problems have to seek refuge in theaters and rooms sealed off due to the smoke during the night of madness. So much money is spent on fireworks that the income thereof could probably feed the homeless for a couple of months, and then some.

When I lived in an apartment in Moiliili, in spite of bans on aerial fireworks in urban settings, I usually saw rockets flying off past my window from miscreants who could care less about bans. They shot off the illegal aerial rockets from the middle of the streets, in between tall, congested apartment buildings, with nary a care if the burning remnants landed on a flammable roof, shot through an apartment window, or hit an onlooker in the head. The sound and fury of New Year’s in Honolulu would have scared the pants off a Jihadi. One year, the rockets were going off like RPG rounds in Baghdad, and I called the police. Eventually, a police cruiser spun around the streets in front of my apartment, but by that time, the jerks who shot off the illegals were already in a different neighborhood. There’s no way the police can catch these guys since they move so quickly from street to street, like jihadis darting through the urban environment on a mission to cause mayhem.

You call that a cultural tradition? What the heck kind of tradition is this? If it’s really a tradition, then it’s a tradition that needs to be killed off as soon as possible, like other “traditions” that don’t deserve preservation, such as foot binding, spouse abuse, honor killing and eating dog. It’s gone beyond a fun, family, cultural tradition. People die from it. People get sick from it. It’s become not worth the “fun.”

And, as a pet owner, of course I think fireworks usage has gotten out of hand and out of control, so I welcomed the ban and controls on fireworks passed by the City Council of Honolulu in early 2011. While it won’t tamp down all fireworks, at least it’s a start, and hopefully it won’t be as crazy as in recent years past, when I thought I was living in a combat zone.

When we brought our puppy Maxine home in November, she was only a couple months old at her first New Year’s Eve, so she paid no attention to all the noise and smoke. My sister has a poi dog that could care less about fireworks. Their dog sleeps soundly through most of the New Year’s Eve. But we thought our Maxine was not going to be as apathetic so we got medication from our vet the following year to make her groggy. That didn’t turn out very well.

Maxine was woozy, but still conscious enough to get spooked by all the noise: the cracking of firecrackers, the deep, heavy thudding of what sounded like dam-busting illegal “bombs” that shook the foundations of our house, the shrill pitch of illegal aerials like World War II V-2 rocket bombs. She stuck close to my legs, and climbed into bed whenever it got really bad, wobbling and woozy from the medication but scared from the ruckus, sticking her snout in the folds of the blanket, or looking at us with those hang-dog eyes, pleading for the madness to stop.

My wife, Gay, said, “Oh, poor Maxine! She’s looking at us like she’s saying, ‘I don’t know what’s going on, but I feel like I’m dying, and all that noise and smoke smell is scaring me, Mummy and Daddy!’ Wayne, we’ve got to do something else next year besides drugging her out!”

Okay, we would. The following year, last year, we tried to get away from it all. There are some hotels that admit pets on New Year’s Eve, so we reserved a room at a hotel/motel in the light industrial area near the Honolulu International Airport. The hotel was trying its best to accommodate pet owners and drum up business. When we walked into our room, we found the staff had left a goodie basket for Maxine, which included some dog biscuits and a doggie blanket. But already, around late afternoon, we could already hear intermittent fireworks going off somewhere close by. Maybe some guys were blowing up fireworks at their workplace, I don’t know. That kept Maxine jumpy and on edge.

We set our overnight bags down in the smallish room and then drove to a nearby drive-in restaurant with Maxine. Dinner for us, that New Year’s Eve, was take out fast food we ate in our hotel room. I had beef stew (the meat was a little tough and dry), Gay had a Korean plate. Maxine had her usual mix of home-cooked chicken, rice, and veggies. She probably had the best meal out of the three of us.

We returned to the hotel and I walked her around the parking lot. Every time fireworks went off in the near distance, she crouched and looked around, as if expecting Godzilla to step out from the direction of the sound and eat her whole. Not good.

I walked her back to the hotel room and then tried to settle in, but every time someone walked past the room’s door, Maxine growled and barked. She wasn’t used to being away from home, and she treated the room like she did our front yard. If a stranger walks past our yard, she’ll bark. She acted the same in the hotel room, and we feared we were going to get kicked out for making too much noise.

During the night, I took Maxine out frequently for shi shi breaks. The last thing we wanted was for her to have an “accident” in the room. Then I noticed that other rooms were also occupied by owners and their pets. We passed some rooms and could hear dogs yapping at us. So we weren’t the only ones with a dog that night.

At midnight, the fireworks noise was so prevalent that it rocked even our hotel room out near the airport. Maxine jumped on top of the bed and paced around, as if looking for a hiding place. I hardly got any sleep that night. After midnight, I took her out again for a shi shi break and she was still jittery and jumpy from the sound of lingering popping firecrackers and the occasional deep boom of firecracker “bombs.”

Around 3 o’clock in the morning, I gave up. There was no sense in staying any longer. The fireworks were nearly as bad there as I imagined it was in our own neighborhood, Maxine kept barking at anyone passing our door, and I wasn’t getting any sleep. We decided to check out of the hotel and head home. At least I might be able to get some sleep in my own bed, and Maxine would be free to bark at people passing by our yard without fear of being kicked out of a hotel. Tired, bleary eyed, and frustrated, I drove over the mountains to our home in Kaneohe.

So that was last year’s New Year’s Eve. It was horrible. Trying and failing to sleep on a too-small bed, dealing with our dog scared out of her wits, and having a dinner of stew with meat too dry and too tough. Is it any wonder I’ve come to hate fireworks?

This year, we don’t plan to go anywhere or drug Maxine up. Like dog owners all over the state, we’re just hoping and praying that the ban and controls will limit the madness.

 

2. Maxine Saves My Life

What cuties!

My wife and I never had a dog of our own before.  Oh, there was one dog I had when I was a really little kid, too immature to be a responsible pet owner. The poor dog was neglected and became a wild animal on a leash, driven crazy by loneliness, fleas and neglect. I had decided that dogs weren’t my thing, even as my brother and sister grew up taking care of several dogs in their lives.  Me? No time. I was too busy studying, working, traveling, moving around, trying to make a living.

So when my wife and I brought a puppy back from the pet store, I was determined to do it right this time. All my hitherto unknown fathering instincts kicked into high gear. Since we had just gone through a painful and unsuccessful attempt at adopting a child, Maxine the half-Golden Retriever, half-Husky inevitably turned into a surrogate baby for us.  I bought a bunch of doggie training books. I began to watch Cesar Millan and all the other doggie training shows on TV. I asked my brother and sister for advice. When the vet noticed some problem with Maxine our puppy, we blamed each other for being too lenient or too strict. Too porky? That’s my wife feeding her junk food! Too noisy? Maybe I’m trying to be too strict on her too fast.

Because I taught several online classes for Leeward Community College, my schedule allows me to spend more time at home during the week. So I ended up spending a lot of time trying to see if what I read in the dog books really worked.

I began a regime for my little Lassie-to-be: I laid 2×4 pieces of wood on the ground, put a skinny pink leash on her and ran around with her, coaxing her to jump over the flat wood, like a baby high jumper. I’m not sure she liked that.

I tried to get her housebroken as soon as possible, but she kept pooping outside of our puppy pads for some reason. I was discussing the problem with my wife, Gay, one day, when the light bulb finally went off in my head.

“I don’t understand it,” I was telling Gay. We’re doing what the vet and the books say, and she should be understanding that the puppy pads are where she makes shishi and poopy but…she’s still pooping and making shishi under our dining table. I can’t figure it out. The book say that dogs have an instinctive reaction to smelling grass and will eventually learn to poop outside because of the smell of grass…” Then I stopped.

We both looked at each other and then at the dining room table. Right under it was a nice, Japanesey-looking goza reed mat. Grass smell? Well, duh!

We threw out the urine-stained mat that day and she didn’t poop or urinate under the table anymore. It was OUR mistake, not hers. Maxine was just operating on instinct. And her instinct kicked in because the reed mats smelled like grass! Talk about a “duh!” moment. There were many such moments as we learned to raise our own dog.

I also had a “duh” moment when I realized that all the book-learning in the world doesn’t make up for actually working with a unique, individual puppy. Cesar Millan may work wonders on TV, but there’s no guarantee that he and all the other puppy masters I was reading about had surefire answers for what made Maxine do what she does.

All the books said that dogs should like crating. A kennel or cage would remind the dog of a tunnel or small space, where wild dogs like to live, feeling safe. We bought an expensive cage. The first night we brought her from the pet store, she cried and cried and pooped all over the crate in fear and loathing. I had to leave the cage door open and lie down next to the cage in the living room before she would fall asleep. So out went the expensive cage to storage in the garage.

So the books were wrong.

But on the other hand, we’d come home from work…and where was Maxine? We’d find her yawning, trotting out to see us from sleeping in a cramped corner in the hallway closet, behind the laundry basket. Or under the shadow of the dining room table. She made her own niches and small spaces. So the books weren’t necessarily wrong, but in the case of Maxine, we had to interpret what “small enclosed space” meant to her.

Then there was the problem of her digging. When I worked on my projects on my computer, I would let Maxine out in the yard where she would play by herself. One morning, after a hard downpour the night before, I heard he tapping her paw against the screen door. She had a grin from one end of her face to another, as if to say, “Hey, Daddy, you gotta see what fun I’m having!!!”

Her snout was brown with wet mud. Her front paws were covered in mud up to her chest. She had found the downspout of a gutter on the side of the house where the water drained, and went berserk digging a hole in the soft mud. “What the–????!!!!”

I grabbed her and dumped her in the shower. Maxine hates taking a bath. I gave her a bath and scrubbed away all the mud before my wife came home.

I wondered what we would need to do if it became a habit. I put bigger rocks under the downspout. The next time it rained, the bigger rocks didn’t stop her from tapping at the screen door, another grin on her face, proud to show Papa that she had dug a hole in the mud almost as deep as her little puppy body.

“What? Again??!!!” I grabbed her again, she had the same “Hey, what’s going on?” look, and I stuck her in the shower and gave her another bath. Again. And again. Three times in one week. She hated it.

I worried about having to do something more drastic, like pouring concrete under the drainspout, or something. But Maxine proved to be a learning animal, in her own way. She stopped digging in the mud. Somehow, she learned to equate digging in the mud (fun!) with taking a bath (not fun!), and realized the way to avoid too many baths was to NOT dig. End of problem. Smart dog.

Then there was the bedroom thing. A lot of dog books recommend that you don’t let the dog sleep in the bedroom. They need to learn boundaries. I thought I needed my privacy. So although she was a housedog, I would close the door to our bedroom and go to sleep. Every morning I would open the door and there she would be, lying right next to the door, a forlorn, lonely look on her face.  That went on for a couple of weeks. Then one night, I was awakened by a scratch-scratch-scratching sound. I got up to investigate. I walked into the hallway. There was Maxine, looking sad and lonely, and around her were chunks of paint peeled off from the hallway wall. Apparently, she had gotten bored trying to sleep in the hallway by herself, and she noticed a little spot where the paint was starting to peel. She pulled on it with her mouth, it came off, so she pulled on a bigger chunk.

I woke Gay up to point out the problem Maxine had created.

“Look, look what YOUR dog did!” I said.

Gay, the nurturer of the two of us, replied, “Well, the poor thing is LONELY! She didn’t have anything to do so if you had covered up that puka like you said you would two weeks ago, this wouldn’t have happened!”

“So it’s MY fault?” I said.

“Well, you shouldn’t blame Maxine, the poor thing. She was just bored and lonely!”

I sighed. Okay. No sense getting mad at the dog. I spent the middle of the night covering up the hole with spackle and then went back to bed, frustrated that my wife had taken the dog’s side.

But the next night, I left the bedroom door open. I put a little gate in front, but Maxine could see us and not feel so lonely. Then a few days later, I removed the gate. Maxine shyly crept in, then lay down at the foot of the bed, quietly contented. She proved not to be a problem at all. If she was out in the yard at night, we’d call her in and she’d happily run in, and when we turned off the living room lights and said,  “Time for nene, Maxine, she quickly trotted to the bedroom and plopped down near my wife’s side of the bed. She was happy being a dog, sleeping literally at the foot of her masters. Now we were sleeping together like a pack, or an intraspecies family.

One of the things I was worried about was that she would make a poop or shishi in the bedroom and I’d step on it. That wasn’t the case. Somehow she figured out that in order to stay with us, she couldn’t do that. So somehow she learned to tap her paw on my side of the bed when she wanted to go outside to do her thing in the middle of the night. And it was always my side. Maybe she quickly realized that my wife slept like a log, so it was no use trying to wake her, whereas my fear of stepping on poopie got me up to open the outside door for her even if I was dog-tired from work. Yep, as my wife said, she got ME trained pretty good.

One of the things I knew had be a good idea was Cesar Millan’s recommendation that a well-exercised dog is a happy dog. I wanted to walk Maxine as soon as possible. I couldn’t take her very far when she was a puppy because she didn’t have all her vaccination shots yet, but I could put a skinny pink leash on her and walk her up and down the dead-end street where we lived. Like a proud parent pushing a baby carriage, I encouraged Maxine, who was scared at first at the big wide world, to venture into the street beyond our front yard.

That’s how I got to meet my neighbors. Gay and I had been living on the street for close to two years by then, but never really knew our neighbors very well.

But with Maxine in tow, many of the neighbors with dogs began to talk to us, now that we had something in common. Jean, who had a nearly blind old dog, warned us not to take Maxine too far out. Kaneohe used to be full of cow pastures, and there are deadly animal viruses in the ground, she intoned. Wait until she gets all her shots. Linda and Howard, who owned a beagle, shared advice and doggie rearing stories. Lynne and Wayne, who have two Australian Border Collies, told us about where they took their dogs for puppy training.

Robyn’s kids loved petting Maxine. The littlest boy, Sam, fell in love with Maxine. Sam would come to our gate and ask to pet Maxine, and when his older brothers called him home for dinner, he would say goodbye to our dog and kiss her on the snout before running off to eat, and he would beg and beg his parents for a dog of his own “just like Maxine.”

Another neighbor, Ron, was clipping a hedge, a beer on the ground, when we ambled up to him. He petted Maxine, then said, “Oh yeah, nothing like a dog, yeah? I used to have a dog. Sometimes, I used to be so piss off from work, I would just tell him, ‘Okay, we go driving.’ He would jump in my truck and we would drive out to a beach, then we sit on da beach, me and him, and then we just drive back. No need talk. The dog understands your problems.”

Once, I walked Maxine across the street to a retired neighbor who was being visited by his grandchildren. The gruff old local guy petted Maxine and said, “Yeah, nothing like a dog, yeah?”

I didn’t know he had a dog. Yep, he said. He used to have one.

“Gee, why don’t you get another one?” I asked.

“Too hard,” he said. “When my dog died, was too hard. Cannot handle yet,” he said. I didn’t understand him then. What’s so hard about a dog dying? Now I understand. Middle-aged Japanese guys like us who have a hard time expressing their emotions can get really attached to a dog, who will accept and understand you for what you are.

We finally got to know our neighbors through Maxine, and the neighborhood finally began to feel like a neighborhood.

As Maxine shot up in size, we ventured further out from our cul-de-sac. Then she got the last of her puppy vaccinations. The veterinarian said I could now take her to puppy school and take her walking wherever I wanted. Off we went, walking all over the place. I would put her in the car and we’d go off to walk around shopping centers, parks, beaches. I tried to take her walking every day.

I was taking my responsibilities as a dog owner seriously, and I thought, we gotta do The Walk, as Cesar Millan said. Walk the dog. Play with the dog, exercise the dog, and then train the dog. Be a responsible dog owner. Give your dog a good life…

In August, just before my school semester starts and I head back to teach new classes, I see my doctor for my annual checkup and bloodwork. The tests usually have the same results. We go over the charts and we see that my medication for my high blood pressure is holding steady. It’s not good, but my cholesterol and blood pressure is holding steady. I tried to keep it that way by watching my diet and exercising at the Nuuanu YMCA and in martial arts, but it just barely held steady for many years, a bit uncomfortably on the high side.

But that year’s checkup was different.

The doctor looked at the results of the bloodwork and checked and rechecked my blood pressure.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No, something’s RIGHT. What have you been doing lately? Your blood pressure is way down, and your bad cholesterol levels have dropped. Have you changed anything in your life this past year?”

I said, no. I’ve been doing all the same things I’ve been doing for years; working out, doing yard work, trying to eat well…Then another “duh!” moment hit me. We got a dog almost a year ago, I said.

The doctor nodded. “Well, I guess that did it! Whatever you’re doing with the dog, it’s done something that nothing else could do, like your diet, medications or exercises.  So keep on doing it. And I think we can even lower some of your medication!”

Wow. I thought, when we brought Maxine home, we were going to give her a good life and she would be grateful. In actuality, Maxine gave ME a good life, and raised my own quality of life, just by walking her and having her around. Maxine the Wonderdog saved my life!

 

1. Our First Puppy

Maxine napping under the dining table.

Neither of us, my wife and I, really knew what we were in for when we got our first dog as an adult couple.  There’s a whole lifestyle change. A lot of new expenses. But on the other hand, owning a dog has given us entry into a whole new world, the world of pet lovers. And now we couldn’t see living WITHOUT our dog as part of our family.

Growing up, most of the dogs my family had were either the responsibility of my brother and sister, and save for one poor mutt that I neglected terribly when I was a very little kid, I preferred not to have pets of my own outside of guppies. I had places to go to and worlds to conquer. I didn’t want to be bothered by a dog. Playing with my brother and sister’s pets were enough for me.

What changed? Life changed. My wife and I had become middle-aged empty nesters. We were feeling like our mortgaged house and yard were maybe too big for just the two of us, and with no immediate prospects of having kids, we toyed with the idea of getting a pet to assuage the empty spot in our lives.

Yeah, sure. A pet. You could cuddle up with a pet, spoil it, and play with it like a kid. Sounds good. On the other hand, you have to feed it, pick up its poop, groom it and take it to the vet.  The minuses of owning a dog weighted on my mind. It made me hesitant to pick up any old mutt quickly. Would I be up to the task?

We started to look around. We made visits to the Hawaiian Humane Society looking for a dog that would fit our lifestyle. We visited pet stores that were selling cats and dogs. We looked in the Classified Ads section of the daily newspaper. We began to watch too many Animal Channel shows about dogs and cats, and I spent a lot of time watching Cesar Millan’s dog rehabilitation TV show and picking up books on dog training.

My wife was considering a small housedog, like a King Charles. I told my wife I didn’t want any “foo-foo” dog, one of those little lap dogs you would dress in ribbons and doggie costumes. No, it would have to be something heroic looking, like a German Shepherd, renowned for its intelligence and trainability. A dog that could protect our property when we were out. Plus, I could call such a dog a macho-sounding name, something like Max.  Yeah, Max Muromoto, Super Dog. That sounded good.

Just when the Christmas shopping season was starting, we passed our local shopping center’s pet store and found that they had a litter of the cutest mixed Golden Retriever-Siberian Husky dogs we ever saw. I took pictures of the puppies with my cell phone and showed them to my wife. The next day we were both at the store, looking at the litter. There were only a few left unsold. One of them was the runt of the pack. Nobody wanted her because she seemed so small and passive, so of course my wife felt sorry for her and immediately asked to play with her in an enclosed pet playroom. Boy, that puppy was cute, even when she made a little puddle on the floor because she was so nervous being handled by us. She had a button nose, big floppy ears, and big black eyes. What a cutie pie!

But a dog? Suddenly I had second thoughts. We were planning on a vacation trip to Hawaii Island that weekend. We were both busy, with long hours at work and responsibilities with our parents…

We hemmed and hawed. We came back again and again, looking at the dog. She was the only one left unsold. We either get her or she would probably be sold quickly. I did what I usually do when confronted with a big, life-altering decision.

I choked.

I said, “Okay, well, honey, YOU decide. Whatever you decide is okay by me…”

She said, “Okay. We’ll take her.” End of story. She pulled out the checkbook. My jaw literally dropped.

The clerk said we could leave her in the glass case over the weekend while we went on our vacation to Hawaii Island. That sounded like a good idea. But when they put her in the newspaper-lined case, she was all alone. All her siblings had been sold and taken away. She had the saddest, doggone loneliest look on her face when we put her back in the case. My wife and I looked at each other and decided we HAD to bring her home that night. We bought a large cage for her, dog food, shi-shi pads and a cushion, totaling over $100, and brought her home.

A dog book I read said if you put the dog in a cage with soft towels, she might cry and bark because it’s a new environment but will get used to it quickly and then fall asleep. I quickly learned that book theory is one thing; an individual dog’s character quirks are another thing entirely. The puppy yelped and yelped for hours, endlessly, in the crate in the living room. When I went out to see why she wouldn’t quiet down, I found she was so stressed out that she had made poop all over the crate and stepped all over her own feces. We had to give her a bath late at night, clean out the soiled newspaper and cage walls, and then put her back in the cage. She kept yelping and crying.

I couldn’t take it any more. Contrary to what a book advised me NOT to do, I joined the puppy in the living room. I lay down next to her outside the cage and she immediately quieted down. If I tried to get up and go to bed, she would cry again, so I ended up falling asleep on the living room floor.

My wife found the two of us, me fitfully tossing on the wooden floor, the puppy sleeping contentedly on the side of the cage closest to me. I sleepwalked through work the next day.

Pretty soon, the cage was disassembled and put into the garage. Never mind the dog book advice. The puppy simply hated being in a cage. She slept on her cushion in the living room, but each morning when we opened our bedroom door, she was there, right in front of the door, waiting for us. Pretty soon, we let her into the bedroom. Pretty soon, she was sleeping contentedly at the foot of our bed, without any yelping or crying. She just wanted to be close to us, her new adopted family.

In the days and years to come, she became more and more a part of our family in ways I never imagined. When I started walking her around the neighborhood, I finally made friends with fellow pet owners who I had previously never talked to before. We shared dog stories and soon, we began talking about our work and our family lives. They shared advice and dog treats with us. Kids in the neighborhood came to play with her in our yard. We had moved into the neighborhood a few years earlier but had never really gotten to know our neighbors. Now, with our dog, we got to know a whole bunch of families who lived on the street.

One night, I told my wife, “You know, she really is a Wonder Dog. Not because she’s going to fight away burglars and bad guys, but because she made this house a home. After all this time, it was our dog that let us get to know our neighbors.”

We never made the vacation trip. We cancelled the hotel and flight reservations to be with the puppy over the first weekend.

And the puppy’s name? She was a girl, so Max was out. But we settled on Maxine. Maxine “Wonder Dog” Muromoto. That was good enough for me. So, after nearly three years, Maxine hasn’t grown into a big, intimidating guard dog. But she’s not a tiny “foo-foo” dog the size of a big Norwegian rat, either. She’s become a medium sized dog with a big smile and lovable character, more likely to lick someone to death than to scare someone away as a guard dog, and she’s now an integral part of our family. She completes us. Life with our dog became a wondrous adventure for my wife and me, a tale of not only how we learned to train a dog, but also how this dog trained US.

 

Dog Days blogs are from an irregular column on personal pet tales by Wayne Muromoto, that are published by The Hawaii Herald. Wayne is a former staff writer for The Hawaii Herald who currently teaches computer graphics and digital photography at Leeward Community College. He is not a certified veterinarian, dog trainer or handler.