THE CAVENDER DIARY

That’s right, 3 years ago today we were introduced to Harley Davidson.

We found her through an online rescue society, North Dallas Dog Rescue, they specialize in placing Australian Shepards…..but by some act of fate, a Doberman Pincher named Harley Davidson dropped into their laps that week. She had been a puppy mill breeder, and then bounced from apartment to apartment.

I wrote them an email and we jetted to the front of the “Harley getting list”….read about that here. (It’s a good one)

We went to “just meet” her, and fell in love with that quirky girl immediately.

Like all gay men, the child-less variety anyway, we tend to personify our dog. Many’s a day that I would come home from work only to be greeted by a frustrated Jamie at the door shaking his head and saying,

“YOUR daughter”.

Sure, she’s my daughter when she’s a handful, like when she wakes us up in the middle of the night to let us know the power is off. Why would we ever want to sleep through that? But I know that her heart really belongs to Jamie.

And why shouldn’t it? He works from home and she spends most of her day laying at his feet……when she isn’t corralling the squirrels in the backyard, or warning the walker-bys in the front.

There have actually been times that I have arrived home to a Jamie-less house to have Harley greet me at the door, exhale/sigh loudly upon seeing me, turn around and return to her room to lay down……She was expecting the fun daddy. The one who lets her sleep on the bed when I’m out of town.

That’s right. I know about that.

Like I can’t tell that there’s a Doberman-shapped indent on my side of the bed.

When it came time for us to find some doggy daycare (We call it “school”. Yep, personifying again), Jamie went to the best. The Dog Lofts in Oak Lawn. Jamie works out of the house and there are days when he just needs some office time alone….taking conference calls, and giving training session and demos without 90 pounds of needy loudness 5 inches from him at all times. He toured the Dog Loft facility before committing, and cried like a baby on the first day he left her there.

The staff at the Dog Lofts is amazing.

I’m not sure if Harley truly is exceptional, or if they just tells us that. (She is pretty memorable with her one floppy ear. She will cock her head to the good ear side when someone talks directly to her) They seem to have a new story about her almost weekly. How she can open doors, but only lets the other dogs out. How she occasionally gets overstimulated and needs a “time out” to calm down (that sounds about right). And how she sometimes sits in the middle of the play area and howls straight up in the air like a siren.

There have even been days when she comes home with a French-tip manicure. I don’t know how they hold her still long enough without a horse tranquilizer.

She was banned for a week once because she had a wart on her lip. How humiliating is that? It’s like your kid is the one that almost spread head lice to everyone else in his class.

When I pick her up from school, every time she comes around the corner she slams into the glass door in front of everybody. (Staff, other parents and well-behaved dogs) She’s not trying to open this door, she just doesn’t see the glass.

Yeah, that’s my daughter all right…….

And I wouldn’t want it any other way,