Aren’t We Lucky
By Vance Meyer
This what not at all what I was expecting. Had a shorter fellow in mind, maybe. Soothing voice. A pouch on his belt filled with dog treats. Certainly not this chisel-face in combat fatigues at our front door.
Our Shih-Tzu, Lucky, was eight-months old and beginning to need a little help with social graces, so we asked some friends if they knew a trainer. His name was Butch, and after nine-and-a-half years my fingers are only now recovering from our first (and last) handshake.
Without being asked, Butch stepped in and began delivering a take-me-or-leave-me rendition of his training philosophy: Discipline. Boundaries. People run the house, not the dog. (We’re already screwed, I thought.)
Butch’s first order of business was an evaluative short walk down our suburban street. Just Butch and Lucky. Quiet time. Building rapport. Dog-whispering, I imagined.
He returned from their five-minutes together with his recommendation: Our dog very much needed him and his training.
The cynic in me imagined that Butch had, years before, flunked out of the police academy and decided to use his prior military experience to carve out a niche as the blunt K-9 behavior czar in the southern suburbs of Jacksonville. I hadn’t given it much time, but already did not perceive his qualifications or combat-inspired training regimen as a fair match for my 12-pound Shih-Tzu. Furthermore, the guy legitimately scared the shit out of me and I wanted him out of the house. I later learned that my wife, Teresa, and our two young boys, Samuel and Noah, had felt the same way.
To be polite, though, and since Butch had come recommended, we let him go on with his presentation. Perhaps sensing that we did not fully grasp what he meant by boundaries, and probably pegging Teresa and me as the types who would share our bed with Lucky, Butch used his index finger to slowly draw an imaginary circle on the hardwood floor. Lucky was to remain in the circle, or "red-zone" as he called it, until summoned by Butch from the other side of the room. Pacing slowly to the farthest corner, Butch about-faced and called for our dog, who was literally vibrating with anxiety.
"Lucky, come! Lucky, here, come!" he demanded three of four times.
“For God’s sake, come on, Lucky,” we all cheered to ourselves.
Lucky stared at Butch, stared at the four of us, stared back at Butch, arched his back and took his personal-best dump right there in the circle, next to the dining room table.
Lucky had beautifully expressed how I was feeling about Butch. I was also upset that the dog appeared to be ashamed of himself, so I authorized Samuel to remove him from the red zone. And after a brilliant tension-breaking inquiry about his fees, Teresa escorted the Green Beret to the door.
Today, if Butch were allowed past our cul-de-sac and into our home, I’m sure he would harass us about some of the not-inconsequential quirks that Lucky still possesses. Most of them have to do with his fervent protection of my wife. His attachment to her goes beyond, let’s just say, normal, unless you consider the historical fact that Shih-Tzu’s were bred centuries ago as fiercely loyal lap dogs for Chinese royalty.
Teresa is, in effect, Lucky’s queen, and he makes no bones about it. When she moves, he moves. When she plays guitar, he sits at her feet admission-free. When she takes a bath, he keeps her towel warm.
The loyalty goes both ways. Teresa’s care for Lucky rivals that provided to at least 20 percent of the U.S. human population. At 6 a.m. and 3 p.m., sharp, he reports to his dog bowl where he knows he will be nourished. At night he sleeps in our bed at her feet. Once in a blue moon, Lucky puts his name to the test and I hear him snoring between us.
I hate like hell to get mad at the little guy, but admittedly I do when he sometimes jumps ugly with me at 3 a.m. after my trip to the bathroom. All he sees is my intimidating shadow, and that’s all it takes to set him off. “Don’t come near the queen, you sonofabitch!” I can hear in his fierce growl. When this happens, Teresa, Lucky and I have to calm down and push the reset button on our sleep.
For whatever reason, these episodes, which I try to rationalize as a minor dysfunction, are happening more frequently, so recently I decided to give the dog training industry another chance. Through our veterinary office I wound up on the phone with a very nice and very professional trainer. Within 90 seconds I realized that she had been schooled in pet psychology.
The woman asked me to describe the first time we met Lucky. I explained that we were visiting a breeder in Central Florida, that my young boys were smitten with the cheerful puppies dancing around their feet, and that I had asked them to consider looking at the detached and less animated puppy who already bore the name Lucky.
“By chance do you recall if Lucky was ‘clingy’ with the breeder?” she asked. “Dear Lord, yes,” I almost shouted back. “You nailed it!”
She urged me to deep-six the whole queen theory, if only on the basis that things have changed for all of us over the centuries. She challenged me to understand the “subtle but important” distinction between protecting a person and protecting a “resource.” Lucky, she argued, knows where his bread is buttered and will defend the butterer (my wife) with his life.
"Well, hold on a second," I thought. Her phone voice became background noise for the next minute or two. "Aren't we selling Lucky a little short? Didn't this woman just describe relational love? I mean, someone, be it a friend or lover or even a newborn baby, pops into our incomplete lives and meets our need for attention, affection, food, shelter, whatever. The next thing you know the feeling is mutual and you are willing to throw yourself under the bus for that person and buy them a cemetery plot next to yours. Maybe her distinction isn't so important, in my opinion."
Then the trainer spoke up with a remark that was a deal-breaker for me. “In my line of work, you sometimes wish that you could go to the breeder with the family and save them a whole lot of trouble.”
In spite of the fact that she was half-kidding, I suddenly pictured her in combat boots and deeply resented the implication. “I will have you know,” I didn’t say, “that we would have chosen Lucky even if you had been there with your psychobabble.”
All of a sudden, my rationalization of Lucky’s midnight attacks as a “minor dysfunction” didn’t seem so out of bounds anymore, although it is a royal pain in the ass. But so are a lot of my own behaviors, to be honest.
A couple of years ago, Samuel, then a college sophomore, needed a little pick-me-up on campus and asked my wife to snap a quick picture of Lucky and text it to him. I told Teresa I thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever heard, and she let me know that it’s a practice they’d shared together since he went away to college. Son of a gun, I realized, in his quirky way, Lucky had become Samuel’s resource. And Noah’s. And Teresa’s. And mine.
The main road out of our subdivision ends at an intersection where your only choices are to turn right or left. In the car, Lucky shakes all the way to the light. If we turn right, it means that he is probably destined for a doggy sundae at the local ice cream parlor, and his shaking stops immediately. If we turn left it is certain that he is headed for the vet for a checkup or to be boarded, and the shaking continues.
Either way, he knows that he will be lovingly accompanied or gently comforted by his queen, and sometimes by her “court.” We go up and down together. When one of us gets sick, Lucky watches re-runs next to us on the couch. When Teresa’s folks come to town for a visit he runs to their car and our court expands for a day or two. And in the extremely rare instance when he evacuates on the floor, the king experiences the same gag-reflex he had when the boys were in diapers, and tries to picture the imaginary circle in which our Shih-Tzu inadvertently taught the four of us to overlook each other's quirks and imperfections, and to protect the most important thing: Our lucky family.
Vance Meyer is a former corporate communication and marketing professional whose blog, myTMI, contains short stories about his life which he hopes that his boys, Samuel and Noah, will enjoy in their later years.
“For God’s sake, come on, Lucky,” we all cheered to ourselves.
Lucky stared at Butch, stared at the four of us, stared back at Butch, arched his back and took his personal-best dump right there in the circle, next to the dining room table.
Lucky had beautifully expressed how I was feeling about Butch. I was also upset that the dog appeared to be ashamed of himself, so I authorized Samuel to remove him from the red zone. And after a brilliant tension-breaking inquiry about his fees, Teresa escorted the Green Beret to the door.
Today, if Butch were allowed past our cul-de-sac and into our home, I’m sure he would harass us about some of the not-inconsequential quirks that Lucky still possesses. Most of them have to do with his fervent protection of my wife. His attachment to her goes beyond, let’s just say, normal, unless you consider the historical fact that Shih-Tzu’s were bred centuries ago as fiercely loyal lap dogs for Chinese royalty.
Teresa is, in effect, Lucky’s queen, and he makes no bones about it. When she moves, he moves. When she plays guitar, he sits at her feet admission-free. When she takes a bath, he keeps her towel warm.
The loyalty goes both ways. Teresa’s care for Lucky rivals that provided to at least 20 percent of the U.S. human population. At 6 a.m. and 3 p.m., sharp, he reports to his dog bowl where he knows he will be nourished. At night he sleeps in our bed at her feet. Once in a blue moon, Lucky puts his name to the test and I hear him snoring between us.
I hate like hell to get mad at the little guy, but admittedly I do when he sometimes jumps ugly with me at 3 a.m. after my trip to the bathroom. All he sees is my intimidating shadow, and that’s all it takes to set him off. “Don’t come near the queen, you sonofabitch!” I can hear in his fierce growl. When this happens, Teresa, Lucky and I have to calm down and push the reset button on our sleep.
For whatever reason, these episodes, which I try to rationalize as a minor dysfunction, are happening more frequently, so recently I decided to give the dog training industry another chance. Through our veterinary office I wound up on the phone with a very nice and very professional trainer. Within 90 seconds I realized that she had been schooled in pet psychology.
The woman asked me to describe the first time we met Lucky. I explained that we were visiting a breeder in Central Florida, that my young boys were smitten with the cheerful puppies dancing around their feet, and that I had asked them to consider looking at the detached and less animated puppy who already bore the name Lucky.
“By chance do you recall if Lucky was ‘clingy’ with the breeder?” she asked. “Dear Lord, yes,” I almost shouted back. “You nailed it!”
She urged me to deep-six the whole queen theory, if only on the basis that things have changed for all of us over the centuries. She challenged me to understand the “subtle but important” distinction between protecting a person and protecting a “resource.” Lucky, she argued, knows where his bread is buttered and will defend the butterer (my wife) with his life.
"Well, hold on a second," I thought. Her phone voice became background noise for the next minute or two. "Aren't we selling Lucky a little short? Didn't this woman just describe relational love? I mean, someone, be it a friend or lover or even a newborn baby, pops into our incomplete lives and meets our need for attention, affection, food, shelter, whatever. The next thing you know the feeling is mutual and you are willing to throw yourself under the bus for that person and buy them a cemetery plot next to yours. Maybe her distinction isn't so important, in my opinion."
Then the trainer spoke up with a remark that was a deal-breaker for me. “In my line of work, you sometimes wish that you could go to the breeder with the family and save them a whole lot of trouble.”
In spite of the fact that she was half-kidding, I suddenly pictured her in combat boots and deeply resented the implication. “I will have you know,” I didn’t say, “that we would have chosen Lucky even if you had been there with your psychobabble.”
All of a sudden, my rationalization of Lucky’s midnight attacks as a “minor dysfunction” didn’t seem so out of bounds anymore, although it is a royal pain in the ass. But so are a lot of my own behaviors, to be honest.
A couple of years ago, Samuel, then a college sophomore, needed a little pick-me-up on campus and asked my wife to snap a quick picture of Lucky and text it to him. I told Teresa I thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever heard, and she let me know that it’s a practice they’d shared together since he went away to college. Son of a gun, I realized, in his quirky way, Lucky had become Samuel’s resource. And Noah’s. And Teresa’s. And mine.
The main road out of our subdivision ends at an intersection where your only choices are to turn right or left. In the car, Lucky shakes all the way to the light. If we turn right, it means that he is probably destined for a doggy sundae at the local ice cream parlor, and his shaking stops immediately. If we turn left it is certain that he is headed for the vet for a checkup or to be boarded, and the shaking continues.
Either way, he knows that he will be lovingly accompanied or gently comforted by his queen, and sometimes by her “court.” We go up and down together. When one of us gets sick, Lucky watches re-runs next to us on the couch. When Teresa’s folks come to town for a visit he runs to their car and our court expands for a day or two. And in the extremely rare instance when he evacuates on the floor, the king experiences the same gag-reflex he had when the boys were in diapers, and tries to picture the imaginary circle in which our Shih-Tzu inadvertently taught the four of us to overlook each other's quirks and imperfections, and to protect the most important thing: Our lucky family.
Vance Meyer is a former corporate communication and marketing professional whose blog, myTMI, contains short stories about his life which he hopes that his boys, Samuel and Noah, will enjoy in their later years.
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