What a dog I have!! He's the type that you read about in Reader's Digest after being buried in someone's back yard. In this case it could be titled, "My Dog Quincy, A Dog You Hate to Love" Everyone should have at least one dog like this in their lifetime. If for no other reason, it gives you something to talk about. When he's not in trouble, he's the most loveable dog you'd ever met. He's loved by everyone who meets him. He's loaded with personality and he smiles when he gets in trouble. It's hilarious.
He is always getting in trouble. That's the problem. He's got a type A personality for sure. He's a hound mix, possibly mixed in with Lab but can't be sure and is about 55 lbs. We went to the shelter in 2000 and picked him out. Oh wait, let me clarify. I picked out a dog named Ginger. It was my husband who picked Quincy, a dog about a year old. Later he blamed it on my pressuring him since it was March with tax season more than a little underway. He said he was bleary eyed and not capable of making a dog life decision quite like this. But hey, once I committed to this pet, no turning back for me. Quincy came very close to going back more than once and would have, had I not been around to save his sorry butt more than once. No wonder he loves me so much.
We should have known!! On the way home that first day, he threw up in my husband's car. Within a day we figured out he had separation anxiety which meant leaving him alone was not a good idea. He followed me around the house constantly laying at my feet. I swear he wouldn't sleep for fear I'd leave him. I found out really quickly that we had a problem dog when I came home from shopping one day and found the house in shambles especially the patio door and window grill inserts. They were not only on the floor scattered about but also many of them were broken, chewed up. Seems as tho our lonely pooch was trying to get out of the house. I consulted a vet. He gave me a video and said there are drugs available but that I could possibly, with work, train him out of this.
So we had to figure out what we were going to do. Most of the time we'd try to have someone home with him at all times but that was not going to work forever. I remember one day tying him to the porch with a nice long chain only to find him running around hours later when I got home with this long chain still around his neck. We started calling him Houdini Dog. Many chains later, we got a nice heavy duty long one, and eventually started to tie him in the garage leaving the garage door open. It's like a big dog house. He's got a bed, food and water and if he pees, so what? It's a garage floor. We're all happy with this arrangement now.
One of the signs of a dog with separation anxiety is they pee and crap on the floor. This happened so many times I cannot count. Most of the time tho he did this in the cellar. He's peed just about on every tool, paint can, wall, or ladder that he could find down there. One time he managed to pee in a can of nails. My husband was furious. Each time there was a threat to send him back. Alot of times this would happen at night so we tried to tie him up. In the very beginning we made a structure out of scrap wood and tied him to it. He peed on it. He'd bark and cry so that didn't work well. Nothing worked well until we finally got a crate for him but only used it at night. After a few nights he acclimated to it very well and that helped tremendously. He still did his
thing" on occasion if we left him alone for too long, but for the most part there was "relief" in more ways than one.
Within the first few weeks of his arrival here, he met a porcupine and a skunk, not on the same day but close enough. He had and still does have the run of the yard. I never had to worry about him taking off. He wouldn't leave us. We live at the end of a dirt road surrounded by woods. We couldn't get rid of him if we tried. The porcupine incident happened in the middle of a meeting I had here at the house. It was dusk and the dog came in with about 47 needles sticking all over his face and paws. It was hilarious cuz he seemed a bit stunned not knowing what to think and just kept walking around. I still get comments about that six years later. Boy that was work taking those quills out. We pulled everyone out, to the vet's surprise, with a good pair of pliars. It was one tool I don't think he ever peed on btw.
One day I came home to discover he peed on my husband's jeans way up on the second floor in our bedroom. He's not allowed up stairs. While up there he helped himself to the cat's food in the upstairs bathroom. Another day, I came home and found he had trapped himself in my son's bedroom upstairs somehow shutting the door on himself. Again he managed to wipe out the cat food before locking himself in. The rug by the door was all dug up, shredded actually and many scratches were found on the nicely stained solid wood door trying to get out. Wonderful. What else could he possibly do? So I started blocking the entry to the upstairs if I left him alone in the house especially on bitterly cold days.
This was now the second door he scratched up. When we first got him and recognized his anxiety, we left him in the cellar with all he needed thinking that would be best. We thought the worst thing he could do was use the cellar as his personal toilet. Wrong. Oh he did do that and more. We came home to find much damage to the cellar door leading into the kitchen. Another d solid wood door added to the pile of things to fix. Deep scratches on this one.
Another time a friend of mine watched him for the day and put him back in the garage where he's most comfortable. I had specifically told her not to shut the garage door. Well she did. She thought it was cold and windy and that would be better for him. NOT!! I came home to see fine scratches all over my new car where he tried to jump up to see out the window. He also did some damage to the garage door where the rubber seal was on the door. Another job for my husband to do. By this time alot of griping was being done by my sweet husband. He said all he did was fix what destructo dog was doing and he kept threatening to take him back to the shelter. Of course I'd remind him that it was HE who picked out this dog. It wasn't my first pick.
Everytime Quincy would get in trouble and we'd scold him, he'd drag his butt, literally on the floor, to us trying to smile the whole time leaving little pee spots along the way. It's all I can do to not laugh. My husband would say, "it's not funny." But you can't help it. It's a riot. He only did such things when he was left alone. The rest of the time destructo dog was more like delightful dog.
About two years ago he developed a fear of thunder storms. Great. Another problem. He starts to pace, then pant, then look for some place to crawl under, usually my legs if I'm sitting down in a chair or he just follows me around. One day this summer I was not expecting a storm and had left him on the screen porch, another place he likes. The storm came, he panicked and busted out of the screen porch. When I got home, no Quincy. I called and called for him and had to finally call the vet, the shelter and the dog catcher. The next day I got a call from a woman who had found him two miles from my home on a somewhat busy road. He was in the middle of the road, in the middle of the storm looking at every car that went slowly by. He was looking for my car she said. She scooped him up. She said he got right in. She also said if she didn't find his owner she decided to keep him.
This was the second time he ran away. The first time was about a year earlier. My neighbor who loves Quincy and usually has him over for dinner as well as sleepovers was watching him while we were away. My son came home. So David now was supposed to have dog duty. A storm hit the area and Quincy was out. Evidently the neighbors were not home and David was not paying attention and Quincy ran away looking for another human body to hide under. When I got home two days later no one had noticed him gone. David thought the neighbors had him and the neighbors thought David had him. Great. I called everyone I knew and nobody had seen him. Finally called the vet in town and they said they had a dog of his description. They were going to take him to the shelter but he was shaking so badly they didn't think he'd do well with all the commotion of a shelter. An aide found him in the middle of the road in a thunderstorm. I had to prove he was my dog. One of the ladies at the vet's decided to keep him. She thought he was just the most polite dog she'd ever seen. It's just that loveable personality that gets ya.
This is the irony of it all. He's well behaved and will do everything you tell him to when he's around you. Everyone that has had him over loves him. I never need to ask others to take him when we go on vacation. He has a long list of people who actually ask if they can have him when we go away. He understands everything you tell him. He doesn't need to be leashed, ever. The only time he's run away was during those two storms, and it was to look for us.
Everytime we leave him with someone when we go away they always gush over how well behaved he is and that they'd love to have him again. It never fails that my husband offers to give them Quincy. They think he's joking. He's not. He's still repairing the damage that's been done in the last six years. He says that's all he does. Fix Quincy's messes.
Last night. We called for him before we went to bed. He's usually right on the steps waiting for us. He wasn't there. No storm. No dog. A bit unusual. Great. Now what? We opened the garage door in case he was in there by mistake. No dog came out as we opened it from the house. We went to bed. I couldn't sleep but like I said, we can't seem to lose him. I prayed for him thinking he's out there somewhere. It was a warm night and he had eaten. I'll make the calls in the am I thought. We got up. No Quincy. Now I was worried, so I started to pray that we'd find him once again, safe and sound.
My husband went out to the garage to bring out trash and found him in the car. He had jumped thru the window of my husband's car and couldn't get back out. More griping. Seems as tho Quincy, getting a bit older, had some trouble just leaping in thru the window. He left quite a few scratches all over the door under the window in his attempt to get in for some unknown reason. He's never done that before.
Will this ever end? My husband's new plan? To NOT pick the dog up from my mom's after we go away on vacation next month. She's next in line for having Quincy over. She may be getting more than she bargained for.
A Dog named Quincy. A Dog you hate to love.
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