Molly Breaks Training, `Contract'

The Boston Herald

My husband found the "contract" while searching for something else. "Remember this?" he said, handing it to me. I looked at the lined yellow paper and remembered instantly. It was the note my daughter signed last January, the afternoon she got her dog.

"If we get a dog" the note says in my husband's neat handwriting. "Lauren is responsible for:

Walking, feeding and grooming the dog.

Picking the dog off the street when it gets hit.

Explaining to the neighbors why you can't get the dog to shut up.

Training the dog.

Paying for all the dog's medical expenses including spaying.

I also agree to return or somehow get rid of the dog if it:

Messes the floor or carpet more than once.

Chews furniture or other household/personal items.

Howls.

Keeps the family up at night.

Signed: Lauren Beckham, 1/26/91.

Witness: Beverly Beckham”

To the dog's credit, she never did howl or keep the family up at night. Not even when she was six weeks old and separated from her mother for the first time. See, we said to the ghoul who actually forced a contract on us. SEE! She isn't any problem.

And indeed she wasn't. She must have known that she was here on a trial basis because in the beginning she was a puppy right out of a Disney movie. She didn't mess on the floor, not even once, and she didn't chew furniture or shoes or books or anything, except for my Master Card and I had reached my limit anyway. And when people said, "Aren't puppies such a lot of work?" we used to wonder what they meant. Not our puppy. Our puppy was perfect.

It was inadvertent when she chewed the molding in the kitchen. She had been gnawing on her bone and her mouth sort of got carried away, I said. It was a mistake. And when she ate a cabinet in the family room, well that was a mistake, too. Her squeak toy had disappeared under the cabinet and she was only trying to find it. You see, my daughter and I believed that Molly could do no wrong. So, she didn't come when called. So, she jumped on everyone who came into the house. So, she stared at you and drooled while you ate and barked to go out the instant you sat down, and pulled toilet paper off the rolls and food off the counters. we chimed. She'll learn.

Maybe she would have, if she hadn't been hit by a car. One minute she was in the backyard, and then I heard brakes and then I heard Molly.

She wasn't supposed to live. But she did. Lauren and I sat with her and talked to her and petted her and coaxed her and when she came home, thin and in a cast, we doted on her even more. We let her sleep on the couch because it was more comfortable, fed her bagels to keep up her spirits, even carried her up and down the steps to go outside.

She recovered and now she's healthy, and huge, at least 70 pounds, and she knocks you over when she jumps, and she drools disgusting drool while you're trying to eat and she devoured most of the back steps, not that we needed them or anything, we leap right over the hole, and she eats anything we leave on the counter - last week it was my daughter's birthday cake. And when people who still dare, come to the door, she charges and drools and leaps and barks all at once!

How can you stand her, people say? They look at her and see a clumsy, funny-looking black thing that leaves paw prints and hair all over the place, that has us cost a fortune and that seems to be more trouble than she's worth.

But I look at her and see a creature whose tail wags so fast when I walk into a room that I expect any day now to see her rise like a helicopter right off the floor. I look and see a lumbering animal who doesn't understand words and doesn't understand that a cake on a counter is not for her, but who knows that if she looks at me in a certain way, I can't stay angry with her for long. I look at her, at the napkins and paper towels she shreds, at the trail of hair she leaves, at bone particles all over the floor and I think, I don't care about these things.

I care about Molly. It's as simple as that.