Going to the Dogs! Gopher.

I can’t remember why I was at the Dog Shelter that day, but this little fur ball was there. Gopher came to live with us! He was a Cockapoo. It didn’t have fur; he had hair. Shedding was minimal, but the tradeoff was he had to have haircuts just like people. I don’t know what it was about him, but I fell in love. He was quite devoted to me. Unfortunately, Gopher didn’t care where he relieved himself. He would go in the yard, or on his walk, or if he was in the house, or anyone else’s house. If he had to poop or pee, the closest spot would do. It wasn’t that he was stupid or spiteful; he had just never learned the etiquette of being a house dog. It reached a point where we put clear plastic all around the bottom of the walls. We made sure the height of the plastic was a couple of inches higher than the spray reached. It was easier to clean the plastic than to worry about furniture or wallpaper. We had Gopher ( he came with the name) the summer we went up to the bungalow. He was so bad that he walked over to my husband, who was sitting on the grass, lifted his leg and peed on him! Gopher did have tremendous assets, though. He was so loving and generous! My father was visiting one day, and I was serving lunch. Gopher had some dry food in his dish. The aroma from whatever I was serving got to the dog. Gopher went to his dish and got a mouthful of the dry dog food. Then he returned and put the dog food on my father’s lap. It was his way of saying, I gave you some of mine. How about some of yours for me? Like Spotty before him, he had a penchant to destroy mail coming through the door slop. We put up an outside mailbox.

He loved the car and took rides with either the whole family or my husband and I separately. One day, my husband had the car windows open about halfway. He took a turn a little too quickly. He looked in his rearview mirror, and Gopher was sitting in the middle of the road, looking perplexed. Luckily, no one else was on the road, and he was able to retrieve him. He stayed with us for the rest of his life and, unfortunately, had to be put down because of uncontrollable seizures. He was naughty, but I loved him so much.