“Mommy, since I don’t have a brother or sister, can I get a dog?”
“You already have one pet, Emily.”
“Rainbow Fish doesn’t do anything. He just swims around all day.”
“We’ll see.”

We told Emily that a puppy was a big responsibility and waited until she almost turned seven to buy one. “I’ve found us a puppy. We’re going to get him tomorrow,” my husband, Danny, told me one day in the kitchen after work. Stunned, I thought suddenly about all the things a puppy needed that we didn’t have. We had no food, food dish, leash, collar, or dog house. Only part of the backyard fence had been replaced, yet Danny assured me this would be an outside dog. Apparently, the time was right. The black lab puppy had come to Danny’s jobsite with his breeder and his dame. The noise of construction didn’t bother him. Danny called him a mellow fellow and pronounced him perfect for us.

We went that Saturday to Boerne with a new leash and a kennel. The litter of eleven dwindled to four. The hulking sire and petite dame waited inside while all of their babies cavorted around and over Emily, sniffing leaves and twigs and following elusive scents. Emily immediately wanted the one with the red collar, who happened to be Danny’s mellow fellow. He stood warm and wiggly, sleek and black with flowing lines from the tip of a moist nose to the tip of a thumping tail. One puppy had grown bigger, but we saw none cuter. Emily loved Duke at first sight and had her heart set on him. It was puppy love.
“Get down off the couch!” carries a special tone of voice just for Duke. Emily has a special tone of voice for him, too. Her soft, sweet voice praises if he sits or comes. She tells him made up stories but draws the line at letting him in her room.

Emily’s bedroom exerts a powerful gravitational field felt only by Duke. Her door doesn’t easily shut all the way. By the time I hear the quiet of the house, something that used to be frilly, stuffed, and special lies on the floor wet, ragged, and ripped. Once in stealth-puppy mode, a jingling collar provides the only clue for finding him - unless a thread pops loudly. Remorse-torn only after being caught, Duke remains ultimately unrepentant. Shoes, towels, and dirty socks tempt him, but nothing pulls him as fiercely as smoothly-tanned Barbie legs in a mini skirt.

He’s earned several pet names: Dukus, Dukers, and Biter Boy. Our backyard became his Dukedom, a well-chewed place. Everything has puppy teeth marks - the door, the door seal, the door frame, the flower tower, the outside furniture, and the hearts of our family. I count on him to demolish all of the back door including the weather stripping. He’s made a good start on it. Good Boy! I’ve got my eye on a new one at Home Depot.

He has made the acquaintance of both of his doggy neighbors, Layla and Snowball. I met him at the back door after work and noticed that he’d eaten a hole in the fence. He came inside and plopped down on the floor by the couch with a grunt when I turned on the news. We found out later that he had played with Layla for four hours. But when the garage door went up, he wriggled back under the fence. Mr. Innocence waited at the back door just like any other day. A month later, he dug out again, but this time he went to visit Snowball. Poor Duke. When he finally got through the fence, Snowball could only bark at him from inside her house. This time he could not pull off the innocence routine. We could hear a disembodied yipping and tracked the frenzied sound to a velvety-eared head sticking through the fence. “Duke! I knew you were missing as soon as I opened the door.” Why didn’t I realize our family had been missing him all along?

You know a puppy is loved when your daughter wears her kid-sized tool belt into the backyard with her daddy to rebuild sections of the fence. You worry about him during your vacation even though Grandma’s backyard is nicer than yours. You bring his picture to work and change your screensaver. You swore he would be an outside dog, but he sleeps every night on the floor by your side of the bed.
You know you are loved by a puppy when you feel a little lick on the arch of your foot if it hangs off the bed. If he loves you, he helps dig holes to plant irises in the flower bed. Left alone, he takes special care to dig them up and strew them with abandon across the yard. The first few minutes after you let him in the back door are filled with grunts and growls and the thwack, thwack, thwack of a tail thudding between the dishwasher and island. When you drag yourself out of bed to take him outside at 3:45, he covers his eyes with his paws but goes outside to do his business anyway. He stays up with you to watch the SciFi channel, the weather, and Jay Leno’s opening monolog.

I know my puppy is loved when Emily says, “Mommy, my heart is just too full of love for Duke.” Who would have thought that one puppy could change a family so much?

About the Author:

Author: Karen Guajardo
Description: I am a mother and an elementary teacher. Duke is our family’s first dog. We’ve all enjoyed going to “Puppy Classes” together.