Pat Bean's blog

Aging My Way

My canine companion Scamp is the most challenging dog I’ve ever owned. For one thing, the shelter advertised him as an eight-month old, 17-pound, female schnauzer mix.

I instantly fell in love with the photo that went with the Facebook ad and from that point forward, there was no turning back — even though he turned out to be a male dog, one of which I said I would never own. Things went downhill from there, beginning with the fact he wasn’t house-trained, loved destroying toilet paper, and chewing on the legs of my dining room table and chairs.    

Thankfully those problems got solved pretty quickly. He now has chew toys and he knows which things are his.

But while I was expecting an eventual 20-25-pound dog, he continued growing. A DNA test showed he had no schnauzer in him, but was 50 percent Siberian husky and 37 percent shih tzu.

shih tzu legs on a stout husky body. When he roughhouses with another dog, which he loves to do, he often limps around the house for a day or two.

In addition, he usually brings home a bad report card from the groomers. He simply doesn’t like to be out of my sight.

Last year, when I suffered a serious bout of leg nerve pain, I was forced to abandon my third-floor apartment and move to a ground floor unit. I chose an apartment in a small complex that had its own small, fenced patio yard.

The idea was that Scamp would use the yard to do his business so I wouldn’t have to walk him. I guess I house-trained him too well because no way will he pee or poop inside the fence. And to prove it, he went two whole days without doing his business, at which point I conceded the battle.

My granddaughter says he’s as stubborn as I am.

On the plus side, I think I needed a challenging dog to make my life more interesting. And Scamp’s the most lovable, cuddly dog I’ve ever owned. Although he weighs 45 pounds, he thinks he is a lap dog and finds a way to prove it.

He is also an excellent traveler and a good guest.

Well, unless the person I’ve visiting has chickens, which my good friend Kim has. Three of them. At the first opportunity, Scamp broke through a fence to get to them and a wild chase ensued, with feathers flying everywhere.

Thankfully, Scamp never latched onto anything but those feathers, and the chickens all survived, although one hid beneath a pile of wood to escape Scamp and Kim couldn’t find her for an hour.

I can’t wait to discover what he will be up to next. OK, maybe I can wait.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.