One thing in particular that’s tough when you’re trying to put stories together in a chronological timeline is that, when you take a break for awhile, the subject matter continues on in time. That’s true especially of the pup that my wife and I adopted. In the story about Mike’s and my adventure down the Little Pee Dee River, I mentioned that Parker, our pup, was about 4 months old and still not very big, though growing so fast it was astounding (that’s the photo from 2006 shortly after we brought him home.

That was a year ago. Parker is now up to my waist (I’m about 6 feet tall) and goes about a buck-40. He’s all teeth and hair and our aging vacuum cleaner finally said “the hell with this” and died. We opted for the Dyson Animal, and while I’m usually pretty immune to marketing hype, we bought it and so far have not only been really satisfied but pretty amazed by how much hair that thing finds.

Anyway, my carefully considered plans for Parker over the winter were that I would work intensively with him in the spring regarding obedience training and some specific task items like they do in dog trials - like maybe getting him certified as a therapy dog or into advanced obedience… something like that. Once that (or those) particular milestone was reached, there’s a guy that lives nearby in Lacrosse that does Schutzhund training for dogs. He’s an ex-Army K9 trainer and from the few discussions I’ve had with him seems to know his stuff and thought that it would be a good idea for a giant dog with natural guarding tendencies / genetics to have thorough training.

I was especially wanting training on when NOT to be on guard or how to release on command so that if some dirtball breaks into our house and Parker starts using him as a chew toy we would have the training in place to back him off before the communists indict us for manslaugher. Anyway, that was the plan.

In April I had a 5 mph accident on my motorcycle that trashed my left knee and left me in no condition to train a pet rock, let alone a huge, strong high-energy pup. Of course there were other things that got complicated along with his training. House repairs and maintenance, an ambitious landscaping project we had been looking forward to and several other things got put on long-term hold. I can’t begin to tell you how pissed off I was, but the benefit of long years of frustration in the military has taught me that as uncomfortable as waiting can be sometimes, you just have to suck it up. So I’m sucking it up.

I got my knee rebuilt, Parker got a new electronic training collar for his birthday present and my wife finally got the new tub she had wanted in the bathroom a couple weeks ago. I’m happy with the body work, my wife loves the new tub and Parker has learned a whole new level of respect for things like “leave it”, “come here” and especially what happens when he growls over his food. For you animal lovers out there, you can set down the speed-dial for the ASPCA. I’m not abusing him, nor hurting / beating / taser blasting him. He’s learning respect and control - both things enormously important for an equally enormous, powerful and imposing dog.

A positive indicator was portrayed just last night when we had my 77 year old mother staying with us for the evening. Parker came blasting in from outside with all the exuberance of a 12 year old kid seeing Grandma again, but in just a few moments she was able to gain control of him and direct him to lie down peacefully in front of her. This was very, very important not just because my mom is elderly but because she also had knee surgery only a couple weeks ago and is correspondingly weak, in pain and frail.

I was proud of Parker, obediently laying on the floor even though nearly vibrating with the energy he wanted to let loose. I took him aside after a short while to rough-house with him and burn off some of his boyhood enthusiasm, and afterward he was positioned for the rest of the night where he could provide her optimal coverage as one of his new flock members.

My wife and I are both genuinely excited about his potential to not only be a fun member of the family, but also at the intelligence that he seems to be promising as well. He’s still got a way to go before he’s got his adult brains in his massive head. (His head is so huge it’s like a furry block of oak. He was doing his usual chewy-snack dance the other day and head-butted my bad knee… I don’t mind telling you that I didn’t know whether to crap my pants or call on Jesus.)

I think I did both, but that’s not the point here. In fact I think I lost the original little moral of this particular fable; something about all good things, or keep the faith, or just when you think you’ve got a great plan going Fate decides she’s bored and so reaches out to poke you in the eye. They’re probably all inter-related anyway, so why quibble over the little things.