The Terrorists

Thing 1 & Thing 2

My parents have these two English Springer puppies that my mom got for my dad as a Christmas gift. My dad keeps reminding me that at over a year old, they are no longer puppies but young adults. Minor technicality.

My brother had two English Springers, Berkley and Dominque. Berkley was a brown and white show pony who loved to lounge around the house and sometimes chase rabbits. In his heart he was a lap dog but at 45 pounds he wasn't exactly the right size. My brother and I taught him this trick, we would look at him, get all excited, wiggle our butts while he wiggled his tail and say, "What do ponies do?" and then he would rear up like a stallion from a seated position and give us double high five. Hansel would always tease me that I just taught him to jump on people but he really did the trick too. My brother loved fishing and hunting so he named him after a brand of fishing lures. Dominique was the older of the two by quite a few years. My brother begged my mom to let him get a puppy until my mom finally said he could get a puppy when school was finished and summer started. My brother already had her picked out, true to Anderson nature, he had picked out the runt of the litter, but although she loved all of us, her loyalty was always with him first. When my brother got her he was a typical Jr. High boy that really loved basketball (Michael Jordan) and so named her after a basketball player and I can no longer remember the team that he played for. She was black and white, smaller, more rotund but a real watchdog where Berkley could be a scarity cat. She was much more vocal than Berkley and Hansel had the idea that we would say, "What does loader Joe say?" and then she would growl ferociously. We were not as successful at teaching her this trick. Loader Joe, my uncle, is very quiet and so has gotten a reputation for being gruff, even though he is not at all. He the direct opposite of my dad, who talks a lot. These two were already members of the family, but when my brother died it was hard to imagine what we would do when these last living keepsakes of my brothers died also. Of course, eventually they did die and much sooner than we expected. We missed them terribly. Even though we should just be grateful to all be together, Christmas always seems to be a hard time of year. Hansel's absence is palatable and it just represents another year that he has been gone The pain is not as sharp as when he died, it's still there and will always be there. I sometimes feel like my brother was the glue that held us all together. The loss of my brother has left us with a gnawing hole that can't be filled. To cheer us all up my mom decided to surprise my dad with these puppies. Who can be around puppies and not be happy? Dogs are such an enduring ego-boost, but puppies they are youthful, boundless amounts of energy, but also babies that need our love.

My sister and I had been telling my mom she needed to get two puppies. Well she held strong with saying, "One puppy would be enough." The seller was quite a distance away and so my mom sent her friend to pick out the puppy and to make sure the sellers were reputable. Now for those dog lovers out there, I know you won't be able to imagine having your friend pick out your husband's puppy, but she did. My mom is a dog lover but not in the Montanan sense of dog lover. That is to say she loves all animals but not really a dog lover and since the puppy was for my dad it was not hard for her to have her friend pick it out. After looking at the puppies, her friends said, "you know Rose, you really should get two." After her friend suggested two puppies then my mom decided that we would get two puppies.

Our mission was then to pick up the puppies. My sister picked me up from the airport on Christmas Eve and we drove to pick up the puppies. We needed to pick the puppies up by a specific time because the owners had Christmas Eve plans. As par for the course we were running late. I knew two puppies for an hour and a half car ride were going to be a handful. Normally my sister is much more clever than I am but she must have been dopey thinking of puppies because before we even arrived at the puppy palace I was thinking ahead. I sweetly suggested that if she was tired, I could drive home. She said wistfully, "You would do that?? You would drive home so that I could hang out with the puppies?" I could hardly keep myself from laughing, I couldn't believe this ploy was going to work. It was settled, I would drive home from the puppy palace. After circling the block multiple times with my sisters directions off map quest and my mom's directions we finally found the right place. The little girl was already picked out by my mom's friend but we needed to pick out a little boy. They were all jumping and happy to see us that it was hard to know which one. The owners handed us a cute little boy that seemed shy and the runt of the little, always selling points in the Anderson family; we decided we'd take him. I don't even think we picked up any other puppies. I settled my sister into the front seat with the puppies and we weren't even really out the driveway before she was calling them monsters and telling me to stop so she could get in the backseat with them. She settled into the backseat and they decided to quit biting her and start pawing at her brand new car upholstery. Then they moved on to my big down jacket that I have affectionately dubbed, "My Puff." I swear it has more down in it than my sleeping bag. My sister managed to not let them get the best of her or my jacket because I didn't see any down fly. Within 10 minutes it became apparent that we needed to find a place to buy them something to chew on. With it being Christmas Eve and in a foreign town we didn't really have many options; we finally settled for stopping at a gas station and buying them some leather gloves. In the midst of the puppy wrestling and snow flying, my mom kept calling to find out where we were because she wanted to sneak these bundles of energy into the house. They tired themselves out and eventually we arrived home.

My mom had visions of puppies in a basket with a bow dancing through her head. She had a cute basket ready for them and she thought they would stay in the basket until morning when she could put it under the tree, over 18 hours away. I think she quickly realized how deluded this idea was when she put them in the basket and instead of them whimpering for their mother and going to sleep they shredded the red bow and leaped out of the basket. She quickly moved to plan B, my mom's forte is new ideas when needed. Plan B was to put them in a room with toys and check on them occasionally until the next day. My dad came home and we sat down to dinner. My mom had put on music to muffle any puppy noises that my dad might here. This was unusual to have music playing but my dad, just happy to see us girls, was none the wiser to the anomaly. About three minutes into dinner my mom, sister and I here the puppies yelping. My dad is a logger and his hearing is not very good so he is still oblivious to the puppy noises. My sister turns up the music. Pretty soon though they were howling at decibels that the background noise couldn't muffle and even my dad could here. My dad quit eating his mashed potatoes, looked around and listened and said, "Are those coyotes howling?" My mom, sister and I didn't dare look at each other but burst out laughing anyway. We brought the puppies out and that is how the little bundles of joy entered out lives.

Once the secret was out, we immersed ourselves in reading about the various philosophies of how to train a puppy. All of our previous pets had not been very well trained for one reason or another. These puppies were different, we were determined that they would be model citizens. Even though our previous dogs had not been the best behaved, it turned out that my parents bookshelf had at least three books on training puppies, some of them even had been highlighted or dog eared and one of the books was all about springers. From all of our copious reading, we found out that getting two puppies at once is something that you are never supposed to do because they bond with each other instead of with you. No advice as to how to train multiple puppies was given to the unfortunate owner who had unwittingly gotten two puppies at the same time. It can also be difficult to teach good "puppy citizenship" to two squirmy puppies. The books confirmed what we already knew, that they have more energy than just about any other dog out there, including Goldens and Labs. It also gave helpful tips about how Springers love to retrieve.....well this was true for one of them but true to the male nature, the little boy really just loved to eat. Despite their disciplinary problems, they nevertheless immediately wiggled their way into our hearts.

Every other pet we've ever had was quickly given a name that had something to do with it's physical attributes. My first puppy was a little of everything but had some golden retriever in her and so because of her color we called her "Butterscotch." These puppies though, they were different, as adults, we agonized over their names. It was as if we were pregnant and thinking of names for our first child. We made lists, we looked online, we tried out names on them. Since they were my dad's puppies, he suggested the name "Dozer" for the little boy. The little boy had weepy eyes and an all black face and was always sleeping. For awhile we humored him and let him use that name. Quickly though my dad's naming privileges were revoked. Someone other than my dad decided "Dozer" did not sound very intelligent and these puppies were sterling puppies after all. Although he was allowed to name the little girl "Lady" even though we protested that it was too common. Eventually, mostly because we couldn't agree on a name for her and after all they were my dad's puppies, she became Lady. We finally settled on Winston for the little boy.

Over the next few months, Winston was in need of lots of care. It turned out his eyes were weepy because he needed surgery. His eyelashes rubbed against his eyes. Two surgeries later, he was in good shape, but the medical problems did not stop there. He also had an ear infection. My dad grossed that Winston was using up all of his beer and coffee shop funds. Then my dad put an oil on to keep the ticks away and he got a skin infection. I was home for the skin infection and a call to the vet over the weekend suggested that we wash him to see if it got better. We washed him so much that the previous water loving dog, would run behind the wood pile every time we got out the hose. Lady on the other hand, who does not love water, would run up to us, sit perfectly and say, "I want a bath!" Well the infection did not get better and Winston went in to the vet. My dad drove and over the drive it became apparent that Winston was not happy to sit on my lap. I guess Winston knew that my dad would become Arch Angel Michael in his life, saving him from near death experiences over and over again, Winston squirmed and wiggled not content until he was on my dad's lap. Finally I told my dad it was going to be a lot easier if he pulled over and let me drive so that Winston could sit on his lap. At the vet, he was given some drugs for his skin issue and when we left, the vet joked with us saying, "til the next time Winston gets sick." A few weeks later, my parents came home just in time to save Winston from suffocation. He had found an oatmeal box in the garbage and had gotten his head stuck in it. Near death, my dad whisked in and pull the oatmeal box off of his head just in the nick of time. The next few minutes they wondered if they need to perform rescue breathing for the puppy. A year later, Winston would find a bone in the yard and lodge it in his mouth while chewing on it. Again my dad had to step in a extract the bone from his throat.

From the very beginning they had such distinct personalities. Although both of them just want to please, Lady is much better at listening and LOVES to retrieve. Where as Winston just likes to have his ears scratched and will only retrieve when you throw something in a body of water where he can paddle around. When around the water, he will jump in to retrieve leaves that are floating on the water and Lady will wait on the dock. Winston will retrieve whatever has been thrown and sweetly hand it over to Lady who will proudly present the object to me. What a team they make.

One day my parents returned from town to see them peering out the picture window. My dad thought it was cute to see them peering out the picture window when he came home until he realized what a disaster they had created. SHOCKED!! They had just taken a quick run to town and home again home again jiggity jig only to discover the two terrorists had completely turned the house upside down. They ate suet and as a result had experienced gastric issues and pooped all over the house. In the kitchen they jumped on the oak table putting scratches on it. Then they chewed up my dad's lunch box to retrieve his "good pizza". They apparently were not interested in the apple that was also in the lunch box. My dad was determined to save it and eat it later; my mom nixed that idea and told him they were not saving an apple with puppy slober on it. As my parents walked throughout the house in shock, the puppies gleefully followed behind, all wiggles. They entered their bedroom and the two jumped on the bed, with plenty of energy still left over they started a tug of war over the quilt on the bed. The kibosh was quickly put on their bad behavior. Stuffing innards from an Ottoman were strewn across the house. The puppies taking after their parents were real bibliophiles; library books had been damaged past repair, marring my mom's already damaged reputation. She frequently returns books late, racking up library fines as quickly as my sister racks up parking fees. Now in Wisconsin you can go to jail for not paying your library fees. I joke that we should buy my mom get out of jail free cards for her library fines. My brother used to color in library books too, particularly loved the "wild Baby" book. Moving on from the kitchen to the living room, they found my mom's antique doll from childhood (my grandma still doesn't know) on a small rocking chair and ate the rocking chair cushion and the doll. But they were only getting warmed up, they demolished my dad's 4th grade penmanship book, an antique item that my dad had recently proudly salvaged from my grandparents home when they died. Still staggering from the rest of the damage, they discovered the brand new leather couch that my mom had saved for for years. Thing 1 and Thing 2 and chewed up one of the leather couch cushions. My parents had just tasted parenthood all over again.

For weeks, I did not hear much about the puppies. My passive parents had had their chicken cooked this time. My dad had had the seat for the Forwarder fixed by a man named Dupay. The decided to see if he could fix the leather couch cushion. Dupay the couch fixer took one look at the cushion and told mom that he would shoot the dogs. Even my mom was not considering shooting them. Then when he said he didn't know if he could fix it, she said, "that's OK we'll take it somewhere else" and he said forcefully, "NO you don't understand there is no one else. I'm it! I'm your man for miles around (he was about 40 miles away). If I can't fix it no one else can". A bit of an eccentric, the next day he called at 5 AM and gruffly told mom to come get her dam cushion and come see what a nice job he had done. Shocked at the early morning phone call but hoping he had fixed the cushion, she said OK but she needed to eat some breakfast and he said OK but hurry up . Then she reminded him that she was and hour away and it would take her awhile to drive out and he said OK but hurry up. The cushion looked beautiful and the last time I was home, I couldn't even tell where the damage was.

Winston and Lady continue to wreak havoc on the Anderson household but nothing to that degree. Lady's new trick it to bark like she wants to go out and then let Winston rush out the door while she eats his food. Winston's new trick is to open the three foot high metal gate that keeps them in their place in the house.