Kenny's gotta go

About ten years ago I decided I needed a dog. I was living alone and out at the bars too much and I thought having a dog that needed walking three times a day would be good for me. And there's nothing better for depression than a dog. I kind of wanted to get a puppy that I could train, but I also wanted to rescue an older dog. I went back and forth on it for a few weeks.

Late July is time for the Scottish Highland Games and I convinced my friend Sammy to drive us to Enumclaw 'cause I didn't have a car. I told him about nature's candy- the Scottish egg, which you can pretty much only get once a year. A Scottish egg is a hardboiled egg, wrapped in sausage and deep-fried, and even though he's a Jew and can't technically eat things like Scottish eggs, he had to have one.

We got our eggs, listened to plenty of bagpipes, watched the tossing of the caber, met the Craig clan, and went to check out the Scottish dog show. They brought out various breeds like collies and deerhounds, which were fine, but then they brought out the Cairn terriers. The Cairns stole the show. The first one peed on everything he saw, the second ran around in a circle the whole time, the third attacked everything he saw, the fourth sat and refused to move, the fifth took a dump, and the last one kept jumping up on his handler. It was the funniest thing I ever saw and I decided I wanted a Cairn terrier. 

Afterwards, I went over and talked to the breeder. Turns out he also ran a Cairn rescue and had just gotten a stray a couple weeks ago. He didn't bring the stray to the games but told me if I was interested I could take him if nobody claimed him in the next month.

I named him Kenny, after my dad. If I ever had a son I would have named him Kenny, too. Probably a good thing I never had a daughter. 

I've had Kenny for eight or nine years now, and he's been the perfect dog. He's always happy. It doesn't matter where we go, whether to a friend's shop, the beer store, the park, or even if we have to turn around and go home. He's always happy. He loves to go out and he loves to go home. 

When the radio comes on in the morning he lays next to me. After he eats he sits next to me and puts his leg on mine. When it pours out and he's warm and dry, he makes it a point to come over and try to like my face (he was found East of the mountains, weighing eleven pounds and probably spent about two months on his own).

Every time I leave for the day, I give him a biscuit and tell him I'll be right back. He never EVER eats the biscuit until I get home. I think that he thinks if he eats the biscuit, it's like saying that it's okay that I left him alone. But instead, he goes on a hunger strike. He won't touch the food in his bowl and he won't eat his biscuit til I get home. He may play with his food, like dumping it out and putting the bowl on top of it, but he won't eat a thing if I'm not there. He makes it very clear that he will starve if I don't come home. 

But as much as I love him, I'm about to start working a lot of hours and I don't want to leave him alone. So I'm gonna dump him on my parents abck on the East Coast. And I know he'll be fine. 

A few years ago, I left him with a friend for a week and after two days of wondering where I was and if I was coming back, he totally bonded with Joe. To the point that when I got home, Kenny utterly confused as to who he should be with. I give him two or three days with my Mom and Dad and their cat Callie and he'll forget all about me and he'll be a happy dog.