Finally Home-Lessons on Life from a Free-Spirited Dog Read Free Page B

close to a thousand dollars (if not more), yet they were giving him away for free, along with all of his belongings.
    We asked if she would like us to wait for the owners and their kids to come home so that they could officially say goodbye to him. Her answer was pretty firm .
    “No . Buddy probably would not even recognize them to say goodbye.” We stared at her for a minute or two in disbelief. We then caught on and understood . This family was just happy to let him go . We found it a bit disheartening that his own family would not say goodbye, not even the kids, and our hearts immediately went out to him. We had said our brief good - byes to the woman , received some hand-written instructions, a few more veterinary papers…and Buddy.
    I do commend them for their sincere effort in searching for a home for him and making sure his health was not neglected in the interim. Some people have been known to dump their unwanted dog in some remote area, left by themselves to fend for food, shelter , and protection, or even worse. At least these owners ensured that his required veterinary visits were followed.
    As we ascended the basement stairs en route to the car, Buddy did not seem to have a care that he was leaving. He hopped the steps two at a time, all the while panting, tugging on the leash, and wagging his fluffy tail. This all seemed to be a good time to him…or maybe he just knew something that we did not.
    We loaded Buddy’s belongings in Michael's car and put Buddy in the back seat of my car. I had owned many dogs growing up so I was quite used to driving with them as passengers . This was not going to be any different — or at least that is what I thought. I never seriously contemplated it until I actually made my first attempt to drive with Buddy .
    I had driven approximately fifteen feet when I was forced to stop my car right there in the middle of the road without any warning . Michael stopped next to me in his car and looked at me , curious to fi nd out what in the world would cause me to just stop like that .
    That is, until he noticed the eighty - pound dog with his paws wrapped securely around my neck from the back. I simply could not move. The only choice I had was to stop. I could not even turn the steering wheel.
    Buddy was so excited that he was jumping back and forth from the back seat into the front seat onto our laps, and he wrapped his two front paws around my neck giving me the biggest bear hug he could muster. Lesson learned: Do not ever doubt the strength of golden retrievers.
    With that, once we peeled Buddy’s huge paws from my neck, we had to resort to an unplanned, but very necessary Plan B.
    Michael parked his car on the side of the road and got into my back seat to control Buddy. This is where we learned that the words “control” and “Buddy” were never to be used in the same sentence again. It simply would never work out that way. These were only the first few of many lessons learned by owning an overly rambunctious, highly intelligent , eighty - pound golden retriever. I was slowly starting to understand the very reason it was not easy to place this dog in any sane home. I suppose people that were in their right minds recognized that this overexcited dog was insane .
    That was our initial thought at that point as well. Our second thought was, “Hey, let’s just put him back in their yard and take off. They will notice he is there some time tonight , and they can go back to the tedious job of finding him a home.”
    We sat there and stared at each other , trying to read each other’s thoughts while dreadfully listening to Buddy’s exhilarated panting as he jumped from seat to seat and from person to person. After toying with the idea of returning Buddy , we decided against it. Though — make no mistake — we still had our doubts.
    The ride home was not enjoyable one bit. Emotions were flying high : anxiety, lack of common sense, dread , and a severe sense of regret. We lived