Oso Comes Home
Oso was six pounds when we found him huddled next to a cattle crossing sign outside the old Derry school where Loma Parda Road meets Highway 187. It was Wednesday, Oct. 24, a full moon day. Today he’s a 60-pound goober and my second-best friend.
“Coyotes gonna get him tonight,” I told my wife. “Let’s take him home.”
Five minutes after he gobbled down some food and water, he let go with a puddle of diarrhea.
“We won’t keep him,” I said. “We’ll find him a good home.”
We put him in a tall cardboard box with a ticking clock and some old clothes. He was having none of it. No one slept that night.
Never quite figured how he got there. Dumped by someone with too many puppies? Wandered off and got lost? Or, as I sometimes ponder, left there for me to find.
Next day I took him to the vet who pronounced him healthy. “He’s going to be a big dog,” she said. “Mostly black lab.”
I kept my eyes peeled for missing puppy signs. Nothing.
Slider, our 15-pound westie, immediately took to Oso. Sophie, our miniature schnauzer, kept demanding, “Why did you have to bring that thing to my house?”
October welcomed November as Oso learned about pee pads and in-house manners. He was ‘my dog’.
This August morning Oso comes to me with a toy in his mouth. He has what’s called a “soft mouth,” typical of Labrador retrievers bred to gently return downed waterfowl to their masters. A tug-of-war ensues and I can barely hold on as his sixty pounds rattles my 72-year-old frame. When he wins a particularly good match he takes a victory lap around the yard before demanding we do it again.
Like many labs, Oso has a penchant for digging up treasures large and small and depositing them at our front door. Chewed on tin cans, an old dirt-encrusted padlock, a strand of rusty wire, a Minnie Mouse cloth doll with a leg missing. (I have a picture of Minnie. I threw her out but now I wish I’d kept her.)
Best of all, Oso loves sticks. Big sticks. Branches, actually. He somehow manages to drag wooden monsters through the pet door into his indoor home which he shares with a washer/dryer, chest freezer, and lots of storage cabinets. The rest of the house is off-limits because he’s so big and our interior is quite small and a bit cramped.
This week I introduced him to Frisbees. And yesterday he caught it in the air. First time. He was so proud! But then he wanted to play tug-of-war with it, so I ran inside, grabbed the dog treats, ran back out and offered him a treat while saying the words “leave it.” He immediately dropped the Frisbee and took the treat. In a few days he’ll have added “leave it” to a short list of commands that make life easier when your second-best friend is a 60-pound ball of energy and love.
