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November 5, 2009

Lee Ward: 11/08/09 — Puppy problems plague parents

Anonymous The Daily Independent Thu Nov 05, 2009, 09:53 AM EST

I thought my dogs were trouble. Well, they are. But I’m thinking they’re not as much trouble as my mom’s dog.

My parents have always favored Boston terriers. They had a Boston mix when I was a baby. Unfortunately, I don’t have any memory of her because she died when I was still crawling. But I have seen photos of myself with her. In one, I was pulling one of her hind legs. She must have been very patient because I don’t have any scars from the incident.

For a long time, we didn’t have a dog. I constantly begged for one and lured them with treats to follow me home so I could pull a “Can we keep him?” act. Finally, after I was injured on the playground to the point of needing six stitches, I was able to fanagle a puppy. He was an Irish setter mix, the runt of the litter, but he was beautiful.

He was with us for 14 years and caused plenty of trouble during that time. He survived being hit by a car, bitten by a copperhead, many a dog fight and digging up Mrs. White’s flower bed. He had a good life.

When he died, I had finished college and was at my first newspaper job. My parents treated themselves to a Boston terrier puppy. The first time I laid eyes on her, I fell in love. But she was a handful. You never knew when she might try to take a chunk out of a stranger but, to us, she was sweet and beautiful and we were crushed when she died.

The next Boston was a different story. Not as physically beautiful as the previous one, she was the sweetest dog you could ask for. She loved everyone, never came close to biting a soul and just wanted to be loved. Her beautiful personality made her more physically beautiful. Again, we were crushed when she died.

It didn’t take long for my dad to find another Boston puppy. Even though at 84, he’s in no shape to take care of the dog and my mother, he still had to have a Boston puppy.

This one is odd. Now, she’s more than a year old and still has a puppy look. She’s gangly and has that big-eyed puppy face.

But worse, she has the puppy attitude. She hasn’t calmed down a bit and she’s more spoiled than any other dog they’ve had. The worst is the destruction.

My dogs are terrible to chew on television remotes. I’ve lost count of how many universal remotes I’ve had to buy.

But my parents’ puppy took it a step farther.

One day at their house, we were having dinner when I noticed one of the lenses in my mom’s glasses was an odd shape. I finally decided it looked as though a piece of the glass had broken off, so I asked what happened. Turns out the dog had chewed part of the lens off.

I wouldn’t have believed it possible a puppy could break off a piece of spectacle lens so cleanly and not even injure herself, but it happened.

It makes me feel better about having to replace television remotes.

LEE WARD can be reached at lward@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2661.

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