Furry little puppies – don’t  you just love them?  You have to love them.  Videos of a tumbly mess of awkward little furballs trying to play can make you want to run out and buy one for that puppy therapy that college students get during exams.  And when you get one and you can hold it in your hands and feel its little feet, and it smells like a puppy, and it licks your ear when you cuddle it up on your neck – well, don’t you just love it?
Until it destroys your cell phone.  And learns to grab your shoe/sock/panties/whatever that comes within its beady little eyesight and run through the house on a grand game of keep-away while you run after it, demanding sternly and then pleading pitifully that the little rat give back your stuff.  Right then, in that moment when you finally grab the bag of gourmet doggie treats and the little rascal comes running expectantly and drops the item at your feet in anticipation of a reward, you realize it – you may be coming to hate the little dog.
Six months ago it happened to us, again.  Wifey was looking for a new dog for us following the death of our two oldest canine family last December and January, both from kidney disease.  For the first time in ten years, we were a one-dog household with Turk, Melanie’s second CCI service dog.  So, what should show up online but a litter of the cutest Labradoodle puppies at a kennel owned by a good friend.  His helper informed us that one of the little females, an apricot-cream color with bright black eyes, would be available in August.  On the appointed Saturday, we all piled in the van and made the hour-long drive to the kennel.  The puppy was adorable!  We were smitten!  The deal was done.  Her name is Ritzi.
Ritzi is a criminal.  I affectionately (?) refer to her as “thievin’ varmint.”  She is a snatch-and-run expert and appears to have great fun with that game.  She is 21 pounds and can stand on two back feet and reach anything within eight inches of the edge of any bathroom vanity, bedside table or the kitchen counters.  Among a host of personal items, she has chewed up countless writing pens and two pairs of prescription eyeglasses – mine and our daughter’s. (That is when the daughter proclaimed “I hate her!”  Heat of the moment, I’m sure.  But she now has a new cool pair of Vera Wang frames compliments of the little thievin’ varmint.)
Ritzi is fast.  Have you ever watched one of those TV survivalists try to catch a fish with their hands?  Yeah, that’s about it.  Unless you are Mr. Miaggi from Karate Kid, you won’t grab the little rascal if she is not willing.  So, we keep bags and bowls of treats in just about every room of the house in order to bribe her close enough to get her in her kennel if we need to leave the house.
Ritzi is evasive.  She is a recon expert and has learned the layout of every obstacle, chair, etc. which she can put between herself and her pursuer to prevent capture, and the shortest or the most circuitous path to each.  The other day, when the wife needed to leave home in a hurry and succumbed to tears after trying for nearly 15 minutes to get a leash on the pup in the kitchen, she just shut the door to the hall and barricaded the doorway to the dining room with dining chairs and left, praying that Ritzi had not learned in secret lessons how to vault over such obstacles.
Ritzi is athletic.  She likes to rear up on her hind legs and run across the room to put an upper-body tackle on Turk, the 80-pound Lab.  She can do a standing jump right up onto the couch, loveseat, my chair.  And Lord help us when she gets the zoomies (which is most evenings)!  Just about the time we have sat down to watch The Voice or NCIS, I will glance over and see that demonic smirk and glimmer in the eye, immediately followed by what I can only describe as a canine version of a nuclear particle accelerator.  She leaps off the couch and streaks through the living room, down the hall, hard left through the dining room and back into the living room, all in about five seconds.  She launches over the wife’s legs and hits the back of the couch without even touching the seat, pushes off like Jackie Chan in Rush Hour and lands back in the middle of the living room floor in full gear for the next circuit.  We frantically begin to grab up any cups, glasses, breakables, iPads, etc. to clear the arena until the cream-colored streak comes to a stop, tongue-hanging and breathless, on the couch beside her mom.  Man, I wish I had that energy!
Ritzi is frustrating.  She will play and play until we know it is time for her to go outside and do her doggie business.  If we let her out the back door, she is just as likely to find a stick and spend all the rest of her time playing with that.  Or jumping in the mondo grass as though she were trying to capture a rodent.  Or terrorizing toads.  Or lapping out of the fountain.  “My gosh, dog, will you please COME ON AND DO YOUR BUSINESS!!”
Yes, there’s all that.  But in addition . . .
Ritzi is amazing!  She is the cutest dog ever, with her curly soft coat.  She is bright-eyed and fun to play with.  She loves being rubbed and will regularly come and jump into my lap where I wrestle her onto her back and she submits readily to having her belly rubbed and feet checked.  She loves everyone in the family and is particularly attached to the wife.  Like any precocious child, she is demanding lots of effort and attention right now but will soon mature into a dog with amazing abilities.  We must find the channels for those in order to fully realize the extent of her qualities.
Yes, having a puppy can be a love-hate relationship.  But while we may hate the things she does, we love Ritzi for what she is and can be.  Isn’t that what family is supposed to do?