Once Upon a Time, I Didnt Want A Dog.....

Basically, the story goes like this: Scott called me at work and asked me if I could possibly get to the Denver Dumb Friends League in freaking Parker in an hour to see a dog he had fallen in love with.  And by the way, he had been going there every day for a week on his lunch break “just to look” at dogs. Oh, and I REALLY needed to get there ASAP before someone else got him. Ughhhhhh, I was not into it. We had just had an incident with a dog we tried to adopt and had to give back and I just wasn’t ready to start looking at another dog.  In fact, the previous day we had agreed to wait a month. But I went because Scott Heller is handsome and this fact makes me do things I normally wouldn’t do. 

I arrived at the DDFL and Scott walked me excitedly down the row of Plexiglas kennels. The place looked kind of like a weird dog zoo and Scott looked kind of looked like a six year old picking out his new best friend.  It was all pretty adorable, which made me really mad, because I knew that Scott had basically gone behind my back to get a dog and I already knew I had to say yes no matter what I thought of the mutt.  Scott finally found the dog’s kennel and I saw, for the first time, the fuzzy poopface that was going to change my life. The sign on the kennel said “Shepard Mix” but it didn’t really look like a typical dark haired German Shepard. This pup was very skinny, I could see its ribs and although he looked kind of like a German Shepard, he was a little squatty in the legs but his tail was giant and obviously out of control, wagging with a vengeance.  I felt my stomach sink as I imagined glasses full of liquids getting wagged off our coffee table. His overall color was a light yellow but he had dark coloring around his eyes and his giant black ears.  I watched him as he jumped around his living space with what seemed like a huge shit-eating grin, which is funny because he’s an avid poop-eater. Why the hell was he so happy in doggy jail?  Good lord, the pooch was just too freaking cute. And Scott was too freaking cute looking at the dog. I’m pretty sure that Scott had the dopey-est, goofiest smile too and if he had had a tail, it would be wagging like crazy.  They loved each other right away.

Some people in blue polo shirts shut me in a room alone with the dog.  They told me his name was Mikey but he did not respond to it.  I kept trying to give Mikey treats but he didn’t care about me at all. He was distracted by the giant line of small children walking down the hallway. The dog basically had his nose up against the glass door, still wagging his giant dumb tail like crazy.

“He probably wants to eat them,” I thought, because at the time I assumed all dogs in the pound were fundamentally bad dogs.  Which is totally untrue but my experience was limited at the time.

Griff woke me up because he wanted me to pet him

I was very uneasy about the whole thing and worst of all, I felt like Scott trapped me. I wondered if Mikey was going to pee everywhere and eat my underwear and get into the trash and destroy our couch….all things I wasn’t ready to deal with. But, I agreed to adopt that day because I knew if we didn’t just adopt this dog, not only was I going to crush Scott’s dreams, I was going to be back here in a week looking at another damn dog.

We picked up Mikey a few days later because he had to be neutered. The vet told us the pup would be pretty groggy from the pain meds but when we got home he acted like he was on meth:  What’s this smell? What’s this crumb? What’s this chair do? Oh, can everyone sit on this couch? No? How about this bed? No? Let’s do ten laps around the table!!  Oh, I have an itch. Where does this doorway lead? What’s in this clothes hamper? Let’s do laps again!! Who likes to wrestle??  Wait…Itchy….What’s down these steps? 

First Day Home

Right away, though, it seemed that fate had matched us with this extra-happy spaz-case. In the days between signing the adoption papers and the dog’s surgery, Scott had decided to name our new addition Griff.  Well, Sir Griff McHeller, to be exact.  (Don’t ask me what the hell it means, it’s probably what seven year old Scott wanted to name a dog). We called him by his new name the moment we got in the car and he responded to it instantly, as if it had always been his name.  It was weird.  Anyway….

Griff's first Halloween

Griff and I had a rough go at first.  I didn’t know a single thing about owning, training, and caring for a dog, I never had one. I read a couple books, but most of them were about training puppies. He didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak dog. And of course, finding our “order” was pretty tough. Scott instantly proved his dominance by tackling Griff on the first freaking day we had him but I couldn’t tackle a seventy pound dog.  All I could really do was stare him down until he looked away, which I had read in one of the books, to do to establish dominance.  However, sometimes Griff took this staring contest as an invite to play and I’d just get a hyper seventy pound dog jumping all over me.  And going for a walk was a nightmare, he pulled on the leash like crazy and zigzagged back and forth across the sidewalk, constantly tripping me up. I would try and make him sit at each street corner and what seemed like a simple task turned into a three minute argument- Me telling Griff to sit and Griff whining really, really loud.  Like, so loud the neighbors would look out their windows and see me staring at Griff and Griff staring anywhere but at me.  I’d wave at whoever was staring at us. Yep, it’s just Sarah Heller standing on the corner with the dog she can’t control.  Oh yeah, and he wanted to attack every animal that came within fifty feet of us.  And he was super pissed off at anyone wearing a puffy jacket, a hat, and/or sunglasses, which was everyone in Colorado in the spring.  This happened on every.single.block of every.single.walk. 

To make matters worse, Griff was not very cuddly and he hated being hugged, which was very disappointing to someone like me that wants to hug everyone all the time.  He didn’t really care about treats and therefore we didn’t have a clue how to train him or tempt him into listening. Not to mention I didn’t really know how to connect with him at all. Griff and I were pretty confused by each other and were both often very, very frustrated.

BUT. One day.

 I was out in the front yard pulling weeds.  It was a freaking gorgeous day, some of the neighbors were in their yards and kids were playing up the street.  Our next door neighbors stopped over to chat with me and Scott decided this would be a great time to bring out Griff and introduce him to the neighborhood.  Sweaty and covered in dirt from weed pulling, I wiped a filthy glove across my forehead and I looked over towards the front door, out popped Scott with Griff pulling on the leash. They looked totally awkward and out of control to me, kind of cartoonish, as a super excited Griff came over to sniff the strangers and Scott tried to pretend he had some kind of handle on the situation. But the neighbors immediately surrounded the adorable yellow dog. The kids down the street ran over, and soon there were ten people all clustered together around Griff and I, with ten hands trying to pet Griff’s head. I knew right away this was not going to turn out well. 

Christmas naps

People always go for the head pat, but that’s the worst place to pet a dog you don’t know.  They can’t see or smell your hand. I mean, if someone you never met immediately reached for the top of YOUR head, what would you do?  Look up and wonder “What the hell are you doing?”  Yeah, dogs wonder the same thing.  When someone goes to shake your hand, you can see what they are doing- so get over putting your hand near a dog’s mouth and just go for the neck-scratching “hello.”

Anyway, the whole neighbor scene was very overwhelming.  Griff circled around me a few times, wrapping my upper legs in the leash. Scott handed me his half to get untangled and a few more kids came running down the sidewalk to meet Griff.  One little girl got right up in Griff’s face and when she tried to pet his head, Griff looked up to see where her hand was going and she ended up poking him in the eye.  He snapped at her in a playful way but everyone around us instantly yelled “No!” like he was trying to bite her and pulled the little girl back. Poor Griff immediately stuck his head between my knees, confused, overwhelmed, and scared. 

My heart instantly exploded.  He leaned his head harder into my left leg and the introvert in me knew exactly what was going on.  “He just thought you wanted to play,” I told the little girl. And then I unwrapped the leash from my body and got down low to Griff and made him sit. I showed the little girl how to pet him on his neck instead of on the top of his head, that way he could see where her hand was going.  Griff calmly let her and that seemed to satisfy everyone around us that he was, in fact, a good dog.

“I think Griff’s had enough excitement for one day, I’m gonna take him back inside.”  Everyone petted Griff one more time and we headed into the house.  I sat down on the couch and Griff came over to me and stuck his head in my lap. “Griff, you’re a good boy,” I said as I leaned over and kissed the top is his head, to which he responded by spazzing out. 

Griff and I would struggle with dominance and commanding and listening for about another year, which I’m sure I’ll write about soon, but that moment in the street, when Griff could have hid like a scaredy-cat behind either Scott or me, and he chose me, well, it made us friends forever.