Oogy The Dog Only a Family Could Love Read Free Page A

lumpy dog,” I call. I head down the driveway toward the front of the house. Oogy runs up alongside me, his tail cutting invisible swaths out of the air, and I stop and rub his forehead; he leans into me, and I gently slap his muscular haunch several times. “You’re one strong doggy,” I tell him. “I sure am glad you’re on our side.”
    About halfway down the driveway, Oogy stops at the limit dictated by the electronic fence. His eyes follow me attentively as I walk toward the mailbox and pick up the paper off the lawn, and as soon as he sees that I am coming back up the driveway, he walks over to stand under the weeping cherry tree. He does this every morning; he clearly enjoys the way the long, thin tendrils feel against him. He emerges and accompanies me to the back door.
    Although he can push open the door with his head when he wants to, and does so routinely, this time he waits for me to open it for him before he scampers inside. He will often do this with the boys as well. I think he takes this action as reassurance that he is safe and taken care of.
    As I pour myself another cup of coffee, I look up to see the boys walking back to the house. They must have missed the bus. It is only a small glitch in the day’s plan and the type of thing one has to allow for with teenage boys. As they step inside, I gather my ring of keys and wallet without saying a word. Once in the kitchen they apologize, and I tell them it’s okay. Oogy is prancing around. The sound of the keys jingling in my hand tells him that we are going for a ride somewhere, and he cannot imagine that he is not going to be included. “You can go,” I tell him. He sneezes and wags his head, continues his Oogy four-step. Dan takes off the electronic collar and puts it on the table. Oogy barks once, the sound sharp and hard at the same time, reverberating in the kitchen like a piece of dropped steel.
    “What’s that, Oogy?” Dan suddenly asks. He drops to one knee in front of Oogy, staring into his face, and cups him under the chin. “You say Timmy’s trapped under the hay wagon and the barn is on fire? We’d better get going, then.”
    Dan rises and goes to the door, and Oogy follows, dashing past him outside. Oogy turns and waits till we catch up, and the four of us walk to the van. The boys go around to the passenger side. I open the rear door on the driver’s side for Oogy. He hesitates, afraid of getting a shock. Early on, there were several incidents, for reasons unknown to me, when the current from the electronic fence appeared to have traveled to the collar through the steel of the car frame and hit Oogy like a shovel, even though he was a safe distance away from the fence’s perimeter. As a result, he is always somewhat tentative in his approach to any vehicle. And, of course, he does not know that when the collar is off, he cannot get shocked under any circumstances. So I coax him along. He places his front legs inside and waits for me to boost up his rear end. I am not sure if Oogy does this because he knows I will or if it is because climbing into the van puts pressure on his surgically corrected rear joints. Dan, who had called, “Shotgun!” climbs into the passenger’s seat; Noah sits behind him. Oogy stands beside me with his forelegs balanced on the front-seat armrests, his rear legs braced on the floor, peering through the windshield for the ten-minute trip. After I drop off the boys, I open the passenger window halfway. Oogy climbs into the vacant seat and, front paws on the door handle, sticks the upper part of his body out of the window, his ear flapping in the wind all the way home.
    Once we are back inside the house, Oogy heads for the remainder of last night’s bone and I go upstairs to shower. When I am done, I gather up all the used towels I can find from last night and this morning, toss them and some of the boys’ sweatpants into the washer, and get a cycle started. I step into the bedroom to get dressed. Oogy is