There is always one family member that is the most excited to see us come home….and the saddest to see us leave. Yep, it’s the family dog. Well, at least it is in our family. Our dog Finley is the most excited to see me come home from flying. She twirls and wiggles and taps her feet in sheer exuberance. All is right in Finley’s world when I come home from being a Skytress. On the contrary, when it is time to go fly, I know Finley is thinking, “Dagnabbit! She’s leaving again!” This week I actually left on her birthday. I know. Shame on me! It’s okay. I have felt guilty about this for days. Yesterday,…Sunday, Finley turned 12. Don’t worry. We celebrated early. Yes, my guilty conscience got the best of me. We will celebrate again when I come home on Tuesday. There’s my guilty conscience again. Fortunately for Finley, I’ll be off for the rest of the month. It can’t get better than that for my four-legged friend. Well, maybe a puppy cup from Starbucks would make it better for Finley. So, of course, on Wednesday, we will go get one of those, too. Guilt won’t make me do this. No, one of my simple pleasures in life is seeing Finley enjoy her cup of whip cream from Starbucks.
It may come as a shock to some, but, Finely is actually not my dog. No, she is my brother Brian’s dog. Finley was Brian’s Christmas gift 12 years ago. Brian picked her out when she was only a few weeks old. She was the cute and feisty Goldendoodle puppy of her litter. Brian thought she was perfect. However, when Finley got older and much much bigger, she somehow became my dog. I don’t mind. Finley is a wonderful dog. Most days she is delightful entertainment. More importantly, she has been faithfully following me everywhere I go for years. I, apparently, make her happy and she definitely makes me happy. We couldn’t ask for anything more.
When Finley was a puppy we brought her to obedience school. Finley was a quick learner. She learned to obey all of our commands. Then she learned to turn the tables on us and made us obey all HER commands. Throughout the years, her list of commands,…or shall we say, demands,….has grown. Our days are spent making her happy. She likes it best this way. Finley has taught us it is our duty to pet her constantly. She would love it if we petted her 24-hours a day. But, she realizes we are only human. Thus, she grants us a handful of Finely pet-free minutes a day. However, when Finley feels it is absolutely necessary to have a puppy massage, she will tap us with her doggie paw to get her demands met. I learned years ago when a dog gives you their paw, it is their way of saying they love you. All our years together has taught us, when Finley gives us her paw, she is assuredly telling us, “I love you….now pet me.”
To my sheer delight, Finley is a snow dog. There was snow on the ground when she was born in Cuba. That would be Cuba, MO, and not Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. (I’m just clarifying this for those of you that have read my previous blog post about Guantanamo Bay.) There was, also, snow on the ground when we brought Finley home. Snow is what Finley loves best. I guess it is in her DNA, like it is in mine. As you may recall, I was born in Montana. I love snow. My love for snow, is without a doubt, in my DNA. Yes, God paired us up nicely. Finley definitely understands the word, “snow”. If you say it she will immediately run to the window and look outside. Snow is magical to Finley. She can’t go outside fast enough to frolic in it. Finley’s first stop is always at her “snow bush”. Finley loves to eat her fill of the white stuff sitting on top of the boxwood bush next to our patio. She actually buries her head in the bush to make sure she gets only the finest snow flakes. Without fail, it is always to her liking. The snow on top of the bush will tide her over until she gets fed her allotment of snowballs. Finley is, as Ron would say, “Awful, awful, awful”, at catching anything thrown to her. Unless, it is a snowball! Yes, Finley will twist and leap high into the cold winter air to catch each and every snowball thrown to her. I have to be very careful when I shovel the snow. Finley thinks it is one ginormous snowball and tries to catch the shovel-full of snow, as I toss it to the side of the driveway. I must confess. One of my many quirks is that I love to shovel snow. Finley relishes this quirk of mine. It means more time outside in the snow for her. Finley is sad when I finish shoveling the driveway. Thankfully, for Finley, Mother Nature likes to send snow our way several times during the winter.
Finley is not just a family dog, Finley is a working dog. Finley used to carry the newspaper into the house every morning when we got the paper delivered.. Well, unless there was snow outside. Then she would flip the paper around in the snow-covered yard. Yes, it was her way of of forcing me to play in the snow with her. Finley is a very clever dog. She knows it, too. She will do everything she can to get her needs met. Finley’s current job these days is barking at 930am to make sure we take Brian to work. Then she barks at 150pm to make sure we pick him up. It is, also, Finley’s job to come get me and let me know the mailman has delivered the mail. She insists I get it as soon as it is delivered. I think Finley feels to do otherwise would be rude. After all, the mailman delivered it specifically for us to go outside and retrieve it. Being part retriever, Finely takes retrieving things quite seriously. Finely, also, has her puppy patrol job. This is a very demanding 24/7 job for Finley. She mans her post from the front dining room window or from her favorite spot in the foyer. Finely will alert us if someone is walking down the street. Especially, if they have a another dog with them. Finley is very protective of her house. No other dog shall enter her jurisdiction. Well, unless it is my sister’s dog Charlie. She begrudgingly lets him enter. They are the best of friends and the worst of friends. When the pandemic started Finley’s was exhausted from all her puppy patrolling. For the first time in her life, there was an excessive amount of neighbors walking up and down her street. Finley spent her days alerting us to the endless amount of quarantine walkers invading her patrol area. With the constant flow of walkers, Finely could barely fit in a doggie nap. Eventually, Finley would only bark if the objectionable humans had a dog with them. Yes, the pandemic has not only been too much for us humans, it, also, has been too much for Finley, too.
We, for better or worse, have an abundance of deer in our neighborhood. The deer have become very used to us humans. People can walk down one side of the street and the deer will be on the other side calmly eating. We humans, deer watch. The deer, human watch. Finley watches the deer from her puppy patrol post. There was a time Finley used to bark ferociously at the deer. Now we just tell her the O’Deers are just outside eating their dinner. She seems to understand this concept. Finley will sit at the window and watch them eat. She is fascinated by them. Amazingly, they are not as fascinated by her. If I notice deer outside eating and Finley is in another room, I’ll call to her. I’ll tell her the O’Deers are having dinner and she will come and watch them. If we are riding in the car and I see deer, I will point them out to Finley. Finley is always excited to look out the window and see the O’Deers. It’s very evident Finley likes the Irish O’ Deers. It shouldn’t surprise us though. After all, Finley is our Irish dog.
Finley’s favorite pastime is going for car rides. Like most dogs, Finley likes to stick her head out the window. When she isn’t poking her head towards the wind, she sits at the window like a kid riding a school bus. Now, my sister’s dog Charlie is another story. One day I had Finely and Charlie in my car. I was driving through the neighborhood. Both dogs were happily sticking their heads out both sides of the passenger’s windows in the row behind me. As I came to a stop sign, Charlie jumped out of his window. I was shocked. Finley was shocked. The teenage-girl pulling out of her driveway was shocked. Charlie is a Goldendoodle like Finley. He is a very smart dog. He just isn’t smart enough to know you don’t jump out the car window to catch a squirrel. When I got Charlie back inside my car, I put him in the third row. Finley kept looking back at Charlie to make sure he didn’t jump through the window again. Charlie could still feel the breeze from the cracked window in front of him. Charlie was happy. Finley was happy. I was happy. Well, mostly I was relieved Charlie survived his window escape. I was more relieved when my sister and her family laughed about Charlie jumping through my car window.
There is a Goldendoodle in the Minneapolis airport that looks like Finley. This Goldendoodle is a service animal who’s job is to comfort passengers that may have anxiety from traveling. Passengers can pet the dog to feel better. I rarely have anxiety from traveling. But, I always pet the Minneapolis airport dog because she is so darn cute. The Minneapolis airport Goldendoodle reminded Ron of Finley. He said Finley would be a great airport comfort dog. I agreed with Ron. Finley would love it. As you now know, Finley loves to be petted. She loves going to the farmer’s market for this very reason. Free pets. Ron, also, thought Finely was the coolest dog. He would tell me this on numerous occasions. However, she wasn’t his favorite dog. That title belonged to his sister’s family dog, Koda. Ron proudly said Finley was his second favorite dog. We didn’t disclose this information to Finley, though. Finley likes to think she is EVERYONE’S favorite dog.
So, you may be wondering about Fat Head Finely. Well, Finley has several nicknames. We call her Finn, Finnie, Fluffy, and even Finnie Foo Foo. One day my Mom took Finley to the groomers. A lady there asked my Mom if Finley was a Standard Poodle. My Mom told the woman that Finley was a Goldendoodle ….a Golden Retriever and Standard Poodle mix. The woman said, ” I THOUGHT she had a fat head!” My Mom was surprised by the ladies comment. My Mom, however, is very quick-witted. Without missing a beat, my Mom told the lady, ” We call her Fat Head Finley”. And so it stuck. We don’t call Finley this much. As you can imagine, no one really likes being called a Fat Head.
Even though Finley just turned 12, she still thinks she is a puppy. Unfortunately, the years are catching up with her a wee bit more these days. Finley can no longer jump up onto my high four-poster bed. She has even recently given up jumping on the guest bed in her room. Sadly, the spring in her hind legs isn’t as bouncy after 12 years. When Finley could no longer jump up on my four-poster bed, she would sleep under it. Unfortunately, the past few weeks it has been harder for her to drag her 12-year old body out from under the bed. So, Finley now sleeps in the hallway or on the couch in the living room. At the last resort, she sleeps in her condo. (We call her dog crate a condo because it is so huge.) When it rains now, Finely will head to the bathtub to take shelter instead of crawling under something like she used to do. I did buy Finley an orthopedic dog bed for her weary bones. But, she refuses to lay on it unless she is being fed doggie treats. No, Finley believes she is still too young to resort to an orthopedic doggie bed. Most days Finley can still jump up into my Suburban. On a rare occasion, though, she will wait for me to lift her into the car. Happily, Finley still greets me every day like the puppy she thinks she is when I come home from flying. It’s a treat for both of our weary souls. I pray Finley has many more birthdays. I don’t like to think about the day Finely will no longer be here to greet me. So, I don’t think about it. Yes, there are many more happy days to think about, instead. We will definitely take many more car rides to the farmer’s market for her free-petting sessions. We will happily go for more puppy cups at Starbucks. We will, also, play with her squeaky toys for infinite hours. We will do whatever Finley wants to do. After all, Finley has trained us extremely well to be Finley-obedient.
