Mulligan Stew

This is Mulligan Stew. Actually, his AKC name is "Mulligan 29". Apparently giving your dog-of-Scottish-origin a golfing name was not as original as we thought. My husband insisted that if we were going to get another dog that his name would be Mulligan. In golf, a mulligan is a do-over, a second chance to get it right. We had had dogs before, Moet and Chandon (One of my rules in life is never let alcoholics or children name pets. In this case it was a combination of the two). The dogs, sweet to the core and completely untrained, came with my husband when I got him, along with a toddler of 20 months. We still have the toddler, although he's now 17 years old. The dogs, though, passed on several years ago. It's interesting, getting a dog when they're adults and not puppies. You love them, care for them, walk them, feed them, and take them to the vet when they're sick. And yet, it's different. Although I did not choose them to be in my life, I was the one who saw them through this life, right up to their very last breath. Putting an animal down is one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make. If you have done so, you know what I'm talking about; being "pack leader" takes on a whole new dimension.

Fast forward to a Christmas night a year and a half after putting the last dog down. We'd been a two cat, two kid household for awhile and, although it was odd to not have dogs, we were doing ok. We'd just bought a second home in the Lake Tahoe area and were celebrating our first White Christmas. My husband, enjoying the fruits of his labor and indulging in his favorite white wine, decided to bring up the idea of a dog. "It would be kind of nice to have a dog again" and "A house just feels like a home when there's a dog in it". To two boys, 13 and 8, nothing could have sounded better at Christmas. Finally, they were going to get a Beagle. Or a Bloodhound. Or a Husky. "No", their dad told them. It would be a Golden Retriever and his name would be Mulligan. That was the deal. Unfortunately for Dear Dad, the wine did, as wine will do, played tricks on his memory the next morning and he just could not figure out why those boys were insisting on looking for a dog, now, today.

Mulligan wasn't chosen that day, that week, or even that month. He was found the following month, as many dogs are, in a listing in our local paper. Two puppies were left. The husband and I, not telling the boys where we were going or what we were doing, drove over to have a look. If there is anything cuter then a puppy, I don't know what it is. We picked Mulligan, handed over our check and headed for home. I knew prior to getting this dog that he would be my dog, my responsibility. I was not foolish enough to think that any of the three men/boys I lived with would take seriously the raising & training of this dog. And so it came to be: Mulligan and me.

The first two nights I slept downstairs with the puppy; he in his pen with his bed and toys and "potty papers", me on the sofa listening intently. The first night in our home he woke up, walked to the center of his pen, sat down and howled the most mournful sound I have ever heard. The next day I did an Internet search of "why dogs howl". Supposedly it's to call the pack back to the den because of some impending danger. That, or they're lonely and want the company of their pack. Either way, I did with Mulligan what I used to do with my son when he was an infant: put him back in his bed, made no eye contact, and rubbed his tummy until he fell back to sleep. If you can bond with your dog, I did so that night.

It will be four years in January since Mulligan joined our family. In that time we've had food allergy issues (don't feed the dog anything he wouldn't be able to kill on his own; cows and buffalo are off the list but chicken is good); 2 major surgeries (yes, I made a nest on the family room floor for he and I and slept there for two nights until he could get upstairs to our room on his own); car sickness (did you know that you can feed a dog at 7am and if he has evem the slightest inkling that a car ride is in order for the day he will not digest his food and, instead, half way through the trip, vomit all of it up on the seat of the car?); a fox tail stuck in his "tonsil crypt" (from running with his tongue on the grass); an upper respiratory infection from drinking out of the doggy drinking fountain after some stupid kid put sand in the drain and clogged it up. But through it all, has there ever been a more loyal and steadfast companion? I think not.

Each morning, rain or shine, we walk. For Mulligan, every day is a new day and a new adventure--no matter how much the same it is to me. He reminds me by his actions to "live in the now". It's ok to remember that 5 months ago you chased a squirrel that ran along that fence line, and you may want to check it out each and every time you walk by, but don't forget to look up that tree, or roll on that pinecone, or pull that one rock up from out of the creek. The world is all around us, don't forgot to look. I'm with this dog every single day, 24/7 some weeks, and in that time I see him enjoy the simple, most basic things in life: a nap in a warm sunny spot, sleeping with a stuffed animal, playing, a walk in the rain. Happiness is everywhere if you believe it to be and a good back scratch can change your whole day. Sure, there's some anthropomorphism going on here, but how else do you describe an animal who picks up his favorite "baby" and heads up to bed when you tell him it's time for "night-night"?