Maxwell, the Wonder Dog

Zack has always wanted a dog. For most of his adolescent years he asked his mom for a dog. According to him, she would say something like, "You can have a dog as soon as we don't have (insert the current pet they owned here)." As soon as that pet was gone, she'd "surprise" he and his brother with another pet. Because of this, Zack has been the proud pet owner of rats, frogs, rabbits, and cats. When we got married, we couldn't take his latest pet, Lynx the cat, to live with us in our newly-wed apartment because, alas, I was allergic to cats. Poor, poor Lynx had to stay with Zack's mom, where she resides to this day.

I always pictured my future spouse and I having a dog because I grew up with a dog. Tippy was a member of the family. He thought he was "people", and rightly so. We treated him like a sibling, my brothers and I. Except we usually didn't tie our siblings to the table to sleep at night and we certainly didn't make our siblings poop in the backyard.

A year or so after we moved into our house, installed a fence, and put in sod, (all requirements, in my opinion, for a dog) we found Maxwell's picture online. He was born in Pennsylvania to a Lhasa Apso mother and a Cocker Spaniel father. He was so cute we decided to buy him. We had him shipped to us via Delta Airlines. He arrived on a Wednesday night around midnight, September 2005. When we first saw him at the airport in his little carrier I put his "bigger than I expected" puppy-size out of my mind and enjoyed how cute and fluffy he was. He was adorable! Scared to come out of his carrier at first,(Do you blame him? He just spent the last 4 hours in a cage hidden in the dark belly of a plane.) Zack had to pull him out. Once he was in my arms, he just laid his head on my arm and snuggled in. Oh yes, this was the best decision we'd ever made.

Around 3:00 AM I began to rethink this "best decision" as Maxwell began barking for the 6th time since we'd put him in his lovingly crafted pen. Going into the kitchen to say "Quiet!" everytime he barked had me rethinking the very idea of having children.

I'm happy to say that those days are past. We no longer follow him around waiting for any sign from him to indicate he was about to soil our beautiful flooring, and we no longer have him penned up. He is free to roam the house. He has turned out to be, what we fondly call, "the perfect dog". He doesn't chew on furniture or shoes. His only chewing weaknesses are paper, pens, and pencils. He has a few odd habits, such as taking the pillows off our sofa when we're gone, and he loves to play with our old plastic containers. Hurray for cheap dog toys!

He has learned a few tricks over the years. He can sit, speak, stand up, roll over, stay, come, shake, lay down, drop it, and get the paper. The last one is how he earns his keep. :)

And now, without further adieu, Maxwell gets the SUNDAY paper!



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