Years ago, one of our then college age sons went to an animal shelter and adopted a puppy—a tiny puppy, a puppy that was actually too young to be properly weaned. Son and puppy came home to Bellevue for Thanksgiving. We had just installed new carpeting in the mobile home our sons were living in in Pullman. Rather than see the carpet go to ruin, I offered to housebreak the puppy, Boney, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, most of the time carrying him up and down the stairs one handed.

When Christmas came, I had succeeded. Boney was housebroken, and when the boys went back to Pullman, so did he. Except it turns out, that although Boney came from eastern Washington, he was NOT a Coug. Three days after leaving the house in Bellevue, our son brought him back.  It seems he had bonded with “grandma.” He refused to eat and spent all his time crying. That’s how Boney came to spend the next eleven and a half years with us.

One problem with rescue dogs is that they usually don’t come with papers. You don’t actually know what your getting until much later. When I was carrying that little bit of a thing up and down the stairs, there was no way to tell what kind of a dog he was, but then he began to grow. At a remarkable rate.

Our vet at the time was the guy who founded the Animal Clinic of Factoria. He’s deceased now, and I can’t for the life of me remember his actual name, but we always called him Dr. Eighty Bucks. No matter how many dogs you took to see him—one dog or three–that was how much you ended up being charged.

When Boney was about six months old, I took him for a check up and asked the vet, “What kind of dog do you think this is?”  Dr. Eighty Bucks replied, “That’s a black and tan Canardly.” “A what?” I asked.  “A Canardly.  You can hardly tell what kind of dog he is, but I think he’s half German shepherd and half Irish wolfhound.”  Which turned out to be true. Boney continued to grow like a weed, topping out at a little over 100 pounds and tall enough to stand flat-footed with his chin on the top of the dining room table.

When he was about a year old, he went chasing madly after a tennis ball in the living room and careened into a brass and glass table, breaking one of his upper canine teeth. Dr. Eighty Bucks allowed as how Boney needed a root canal to keep all his other teeth from slipping sideways, but it turns out the Animal Clinic of Factoria didn’t DO root canals, so he referred us to a specialty vet who did and who also charged way more than eighty bucks.

We dropped Boney off for the procedure. When we came back, the vet raised hell with us. Evidently he had started doing the root canal without having administered enough anesthetic, and Boney had nailed him. (Try doing a root canal on me without enough novacaine and see what happens!)  “He is a vicious dog,” the doggy dentist railed at us.  “He needs to be put down.”

Back we went to Dr. Eighty Bucks. He said, “Boney was taken away to the shelter far too early. He is insecure, and insecure dogs can be dangerous dogs. Why don’t you take him to the Academy for Canine Behaviour in Woodinville and see if they can teach him how to be a dog?”

That’s how Boney ended up there for six weeks of Doggy Boot Camp, and he returned a total gentleman. Since then, all of our dogs and most of our granddogs have come through the Academy. It helps that they all know the same training language. And for those of you who might be considering doing a rescue, the Academy does free evaluations of rescued dogs to see if they are actually suitable for your particular family situation.

So here we are, about to set off for Cannon Beach. Our newest family member, Jojo, is not yet 100% trustworthy when it comes to being house trained or not eating everything in sight. (She made off with my glasses from a side table last night, and I rescued them just in time!) She has yet to master the fundamentals of walking on a leash—a necessity for being on the beach. In addition, Jojo is a doggy anomaly—at least in our family. She gets carsick. The idea of driving to Cannon Beach with a heaving, barfing puppy in my lap is not my idea of a vacation.

So this week, Jojo is starting her stint in Doggy Boot Camp.  And Bella will go in for a one week Board and Train Refresher.

We’ll be on vacation sans dogs, but in the long run, we’ll all be better off.