You know those kids who chase animals around then they try to escape by hiding under the couch? Well I was that kid. My grandma had a little black dog and I would chase it around and it would hide from me. I had always wanted a dog, I remember begging my parents to get one. On my 12th birthday I got the best birthday present, my parents said that I could pick out a dog! I had already decided that I wanted a boxer dog. Off we went as a family to this small rural town. I remember pulling up to the house and it having a barn in the back. There was a litter of pups and my brother and sister and me played with all of them. At the end one dog picked us, he wanted to come. Chewy Bob Dogly was adopted into our family.
Oh the fun years that past. Chewy was such a good dog, patient enough to put up with the ridiculous things we made him do. Play Pretty Pretty Princess. (He was really good) Play dress up. Be the horse in the backyard. Smart dog too, we had to keep changing what we were saying because he would know. He learn "walk" fast, then he learn "w", used instead of walk. Finally, we came up with circular perambulation, since it was around the block. He didn't pick up on that one. He sure loved to run through the tall grass. By my house there was a field and the grass would just grow. We would go play hide and seek with the dog. Someone would cover his eyes and the others would hide. This is probably the scariest hide and go seek because there is a 100 pound dog run full speed at you trying to find you, and well he's not great at stopping. No point I suppose. My Dad taught my dog to "hunt" cats and squirrels and birds. Basically to keep them out of the yard. However, if he saw one, off he went after it, even if you were holding onto the lease. If you said cat and he was in the house, he would run to the back door and want to go out and patrol the backyard and confirm it's security. If the side gate would not get closed all the way Chewy would just walk out and sit in the front driveway until someone came home, and then would give you the look "Ya, you left the gate open stupid." My Dad, found it funny to send my dog up to get me up on Saturday morning, needless to say, I was so glad when we got hardwood floors and he could no longer come pounding up the stairs and dive into my body on my Saturday mornings. Chewy didn't ever learn fetch, if you threw the ball he would not bring it back, instead he would ran away from you and make you chase him.
Funny things my dog did: One day I baked a chocolate cake, and I put it on the table and I went up stairs to get my sister to frost it and I came back and there is my dog up on the chair and had eaten half the cake. He fit right in with our musical family. He would howl when we would play our flutes and try and lick them, silly dog. When my mom would play the piano he would just go lay under the piano bench. Chewy never liked sitting directly on the ground, not sure why. But, if your foot was around he would come sit on it.
Stuff I would get blamed for:
My Dad built this nice dog run on the side of the house, and we would put the dog in there...for whatever reason. Well, the dog would be out in the yard again, and my Dad would say Tina, you didn't close the gate! and I would say I did. Turns out that boxers are excellent chain link fence climbers. He would just climb over the fence, quite amazing to watch. Well we gave up on the dog run. Chewy also learned to turn the water on if he wanted more water, well he did bother to turn it off. So I would get blamed for leaving the water on, until my Mom heard this noise and looked and he was pawing the water faucet. Clever dog.
It is amazing how an animal came become a member of a family. He got Christmas presents and birthday presents and family pictures. He knew something was wrong even if no one else did. Many hours we spent walking my dog, talking with him, hanging out watching tv. I watched my dog grow older, become gray in the face. Chewy was born on July 12, 1997 and died January 19th, 2011. Chewy was 13 1/2 I wanted to calculate his age in human years. According to Pedigree.com Chewy was 96 at 13 (there are no 1/2 years so I was going to average the two) I put in 14 and Pedigree sent me back not a number, but a message that they were unable to process my request at this time. I started laughing...good ol' dog, you beat the dog calculator. We decided that he lived to be 100 years old. He lived a century, I'm glad he shared his life with our family, I hope he feels the same.
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