max pants

if you feel like your life is incomplete without a small, demanding animal following you around, i would like to suggest a dachshund. and if you look at their freakish pringles can form and fall in love, i would encourage you to get a rescue dog. i know those store-bought puppies are cute and cuddly, but dachshunds are always going to be cute and cuddly. even the old ones. the nice thing about recycled dogs is that they're generally house trained. and over the whole chewing, crying, jumping, tearing things up phase.

the poster boy for rescue adoption (in fact, for senior rescue adoption) is our own max pants. we took a ferry to get max from the people who were giving him up. he was ten or so, full of cheap, canned dog food, and terrified. he barfed all over the inside of the pet carrier and himself. we cleaned him up just as the ferry was pulling into the station. he cried the whole ferry ride back and then cried some more on the subway trip home. he shook. his fur fell off. when we got him home, he was a mess. his fur was missing in several places. his ears were furless and crusty. he smelled and his breath was like the stink at the gates of hell. he was heavy and scared and miserable.

we bathed him, fed him good food (no more waffles, no more mighty dog), slathered a variety of fancy emollients onto his ears and ended up spending five million bucks on fang removal because his mouth was a rotten cave of evil.

after only a few weeks, we realized we had a shiny new dog who smelled, well, he still smelled like a dog, but other than that, he was spectacular.


max is not like any other old dog we'd ever met. he quickly established his power over guthrie and impressed us with his ability to jump very high and catch almost anything (ball, snack, gnat) immediately. although max has slowed a bit in the last few years (he's past 15!), he still gets wild from time to time when the kongs are flying.





of course, the real reason we brought max home is because we hoped he'd be a good influence on guthrie. i think i mentioned before that guthrie is store-bought and although we love him, well, he needed a little help. some would say a lot of help. the two guys hit it off right away. they spend a good part of their time on the back of the couch keeping the small front yard free of cats, birds and squirrels. they yell at dogs on the sidewalk who pee on their trees. they keep watch for the delivery guys who bring pizza or super nachos.

max has made guthrie just a little more gentle and he's lent an air of dignity to out otherwise tornado-like family. he sounds like a whale and a walrus and a moose all singing together and he needs little doggie stairs to get up on the bed. although his eyes are nearly white he can glare as intimidatingly as a monstrous guard dog. there was a time we were putting hot sauce on the furniture to keep guthrie from devouring it. i think guthrie cut out many of his puppy behaviors simply because he felt shamed when max saw him. guthrie has learned quite a bit from max. he really understands the value of a good nap.



and we have learned quite a bit, too. max sets the pace in our house. after all, he is the oldest.