Growing up, I had two different dogs for pets. The first was named Elfie, and looked like this.
It was around 1985 or so that we acquired Elfie. I don't know where she came from, probably somebody that Mom or Dad knew that had puppies to get rid of. We got her right around Christmas time, so everybody decided that we had to give her some sort of Christmas-related name. This was pretty short-sighted if you ask me, because the dog wasn't a decoration that we were going to put away come January. She was going to be around for good, and we were going to have to call her this stupid Christmas name even in July.
Dog names are a sore spot with me, though. It'll come up again later in the post. Oh, wait, let me bring it up one more time right now, actually. I remember; after we'd pretty much all settled on the name Elfie, and had been calling the dog that for weeks; Mom telling me that Elfie was not going to be her permanent name. She was under the impression that we weren't decided, and the name was still up in the air. She didn't think the Christmas related name was the problem though. She tried suggesting some other Christmas names to me.
"We could call her Pixie..." she said.
That sounded like the worst idea in the world. "No way, Mom!" I said.
I don't know if she brought up the idea of giving the dog a different name to anyone else, but it never happened. The dog's name remained Elfie.
I think I may have been the person who loved that dog the most, although most everyone who still lived at home at that time really liked her. I was the only one who did an oil painting of the dog, however.
So, check mate.
I really did love Elfie, though. In my mind, she was a perfect dog. She was the kind of dog that you would imagine when saying that you wanted a dog to play with your children. She was super high energy and active. She loved to chase tennis balls...or any ball, really, but tennis balls were what she got most frequently because of the size being just right.
She chased the ball endlessly, and never had enough. She would pester us with the ball, dropping it at our feet over and over, and if we didn't throw it in a timely enough manner, she would push the ball with her nose towards us to remind us that it was there. Sometimes we would get fed up with this, and hide her ball from her so she would leave us alone, but it never worked. She always ferreted it out from wherever we'd stashed it, and brought it over for us to throw it again.
I remember once, while folding laundry, trying to stash her ball in the clothes basket, and when I turned my back, she leaped from the ground up onto the table, sniffed around in the clothes basket, and yanked the ball out, before hopping back down. Of course, she simply brought the ball right back to me, dropping it at my feet for me to throw it again. Funny that she would trust me like that the second after I'd tried to hide the ball. I could have just dropped it right back into the clothes basket. She didn't care. She needed that ball to be thrown.
Sometimes we would get so fed up that we would throw the ball over the back fence into the park. Elfie would dash off chasing the ball, and then slow as she realized that the ball hadn't landed where she could get it. I always laughed when she would do that, because she would do these slow leaps that looked like a deer prancing along as the truth would hit her.
She was so crazy for balls that sometimes we would test her, just to see how far she would go to chase a ball. One time, we had taken Elfie up on top of the swing set tower in the back yard. This thing was really high up there, probably eight or ten feet, something like that. Let me see if I can find a picture of it...okay, this is the best picture I could find:
Hopefully, that picture communicates the height of the thing. We were up on the platform there at the top with Elfie. Elfie was a pretty small dog...not a toy-sized chihuahua, but still a long way smaller than even a Labrador or a golden retriever. We threw Elfie's ball off the platform, and Elfie dashed to the edge and leaped off without even considering the consequences. She hit the ground paws first, but falling from that height was too much downward momentum and her legs buckled and her body crashed down onto the grass as well. She was completely unfazed. She hopped right up, and scrambled on after the ball. As far as I could tell, she had no ill effects from that crazy jump, so maybe she knew what she was doing. I was totally amazed that she did that, however.
She would chase tennis balls for so long that eventually, the cover would start to tear apart and eventually fall off. That didn't faze her either. She would just bring that rubbery inner ball that's under the fuzzy green stuff, and drop that at your feet. There was something much grosser, however, about throwing the rubber ball. I guess the green fuzz of the tennis ball would soak up most of the dog slobber, so it wasn't so gross on your hand when you threw it. Without the fuzz, the slobber was much more pronounced. We usually tossed the old gross rubber ball, and got a new ball out of the three-pack when it got to that point.
Elfie didn't limit herself to chasing tennis balls, however. If I ever went out to play soccer, Elfie would quickly attack my soccer ball. I had to really put some sauce on a shot or Elfie would stop it before it arrived at the goal. If I remember right she may have even punctured one or two of our older balls with her teeth when pouncing on them.
She also chased flashlight beams when I would shine them on the wall. She would have been like the stereotypical cat with a laser pointer if laser pointers were a thing back then. She would run around chasing the light on the wall, barking and getting all worked up until I had to turn off the light to give her a rest. She would be a little frantic for the rest of the evening whenever you played with her and a flashlight.
Elfie loved to just run, and sometimes she would do that around the backyard. Every now and then she would get going running at full speed around the perimeter of the grass. There was no way to keep up with her at all. The game that I developed whenever she would get into this mood was to position myself along her path, and try to dive out and catch her as she dashed past. It was hard to time it right, because she streaked past like a bolt of lightning, but after a while I got pretty good at it. It's surprising I didn't injure her by tackling her while she was cruising at such high speed.
One other thing that I always liked a lot was when she would leap from the ground into my arms. That was something that she just kind of figured out on her own. We never really taught it to her like you would have to do for most dog tricks. In fact, we never taught her any of those tricks. Everything that she did was all instinctive and natural. Anyway, I could stand in front of Elfie, pat my chest, and she would leap all the way up to where I could catch her and hold her in my arms. It was pretty cool if you ask me.
Elfie wasn't the perfect dog, however. She had one big flaw. She would protect herself when messed with rather than flee. So, she bit a fair number of folks. It wasn't just those that she didn't like either. Even her favorite person (me) got bit many times. I remember one time holding her in my arms, and getting the stupid idea to squeeze her really tight. I don't know if I was trying to be extra loving or just a little piece of crap, but Elfie snapped at me, and her teeth cut me open right at the bridge of my nose. Luckily, she hadn't snapped just an inch or two to the right or the left, or I might have lost an eye.
Those that Elfie didn't love also got bit, though. Particularly the young children of my older brothers and sisters. I remember one time on the back patio when Neil toddled up to Elfie with his hands out. If Elfie were smarter she would have run, but she wasn't. She always just wanted to play and be around people. Anyway, Neil reached out and managed to jam one of his little tiny fingers into Elfie's nose. Elfie bit Neil's hand savagely, and he ran off screaming to his mother.
I remember feeling that it was unfair that Elfie was the one blamed for this. I mean, Neil put his finger up the dog's nose! Of course, Neil was under one year of age, and couldn't be expected to make wise decisions. If we were going to have a dog around, it needed to know to run away rather than stand its ground.
For a while, we tried to deal with the problem by locking Elfie up in the laundry room whenever we had a family dinner. She hated it. She wanted to be out where the fun was. She scratched on the door the entire time, begging to be let out. Our wooden pocket door had thousands of grooves that her claws had scratched into it as she begged to be let out. What always happened was somebody would open the door by accident, and Elfie would get free. We would have to chase her down, and return her to the laundry room. This usually happened about six or seven times per family dinner, and someone might get bit while she was loose as well.
Eventually, the older kids said that they weren't going to come visit anymore if we had Elfie around, and so my parents took her to the pound. I was pretty devastated. I held it against my older siblings for a while. Worst of all, Dad told me that the pound had told him that since Elfie had problems with biting, they wouldn't be adopting her out to anyone else. She was definitely getting put down.
We went several years without a dog after that, but one day when I was a junior in high school (I think), we were at someone's house that had a litter of puppies that they needed to adopt out. Cortney, Misti, and Cheeri played with the puppies a lot, and before we knew it, we were heading home with a new dog.
Now it's time for me to complain about dog names, because we had a new dog that it was time to name. Learning from our last attempt, I was eager not to wind up with a stupid-sounding dog name. I can't remember what time of year we got this new dog, but I know it wasn't Christmastime, so at least a name like Elfie wasn't going to happen, but other lame cutesie names were a possibility.
I really wanted to name the dog Bosworth. I thought that was a cool sounding name for a dog. Cards on the table here, I wanted to name the dog after Brian "The Boz" Bosworth, because I thought he was cool, although I think his time in the limelight had already passed by this time. I suspect you don't remember The Boz. He was a football player who was a big deal in college, but had his pro career shortened by injury. Here's a picture of him:
Yes, he was very '80s. It may shock you to know that I wanted a haircut like his when I was in high school. I never could quite take it as far as he did. I always cut the sides pretty short, but never went for the flattop. Later, Boz also grew a long mullet in the back. I wanted to do that as well, but Mom never would let me go all in. My hair in the back was a little long, but never full-on mullet. Here's a picture for demonstration:
Notice the fluff you can see down below my ears. That was as intense as my mullet ever got. Anyway, I got way off subject here. We're talking about dog names.
So, I wanted to avoid cheesy names, and I wanted Bosworth. I was in the minority when it came to that, however. My sisters said we couldn't name our dog Bosworth, because the dog was a girl, and that wasn't a girl name. I tried to put up a fight, but nobody backed me up. Instead, they wanted cheesy names, and our dog ended up with the name Taffy. About as lame and unoriginal as possible if you ask me. Just what I was trying to avoid.
Taffy was a good dog, but she was almost the exact opposite of Elfie.
She didn't bite, which I suppose is the most important thing. Taffy had the one instinct that Elfie didn't have. When she was messed with by the nephews and nieces, she ran for it rather than defending herself.
All the other instincts that Elfie had, like chasing balls, running around the yard, leaping into my arms, she did not have. She was a very boring dog when it came to all of that stuff. I suppose it didn't matter anymore, because I was not the same person I was when we got Elfie. I wasn't a boy who would enjoy a friend to play with whenever I needed one. Instead, I was in high school, and didn't have a lot of time for a dog. I still liked Taffy plenty, but she would never be as special to me as Elfie was.
There was a neighbor that had a dog named Harrison...at least I want to say it was Harrison, could be wrong, but it's not really important. Harrison often found ways through our fence to mate with our dogs, both Elfie and Taffy had visits from Harrison over the years. Taffy had puppies by way of Harrison at some point relatively early in her life. We have a few awful, out-of-focus pictures of the puppies:
It was fun to have a mess of puppies at our house, I think it was five in total, and I think some of the younger kids would have been happy if we'd kept some of them. They came up with names for all of them, and they followed the same horrid naming conventions. I can only remember one of the names the kids came up with. They called the black puppy with the brown eyebrows Snickerdoodle. Yikes! Imagine.
We didn't keep any of the puppies. Dad put an ad in the paper for free puppies, and within a week they were all claimed. Taffy used to howl in the night pretty often, and I think Dad blamed the loss of her puppies on her tendency to howl. He thought she might be mourning their loss or something. Having one litter of puppies was enough, though, and Dad had Taffy fixed before it could happen again.
We weren't freaky pet people, so we don't have a lot of pictures of our dogs. Elfie, as far as I know, only appears in that one picture that I showed at the start of the post. Taffy didn't get a lot more, but there are a few more. When I left on my mission, realizing that I would never really be a full-time member of my family again, I took pictures of many of the things in my house that I wanted to remember, including my cute, but lazy dog.
I think that's a really nice picture of Taffy. I wanted a picture of us together, though, so I set up my camera to take a timer shot. Not quite as good, but still a special shot.
I should have set it up outside instead, where I could get some nice lighting, but I was still pretty clueless about photography in those days.
The last few pictures that I have of Taffy are from the short period where Shantell and I lived with Dad when we moved back to Sacramento in 2000. Taffy was much fatter by then. Marilyn had fed her steady diet of table scraps after she'd arrived, alarmed by how skinny the poor dog had been. Taffy was also pretty old and slow by then too.
We did a roll of black and white film of baby Morgan, and Taffy managed to get into a couple of the shots. This next one is a really cute one of Morgan and Taffy.
I suppose I should be thankful it was Taffy and not Elfie. Morgan probably would have been bitten by Elfie for grabbing at her fur like that.
A few years later, Dad and Mom sold the house and left to go on a mission. Taffy was still around at the time, very old, but still around. Dad had nowhere to put Taffy, so he had to take her to the shelter. I don't know what happened to her from there. I assume, because she was so old, that she was put down, but I don't know.
Shantell really grew to love Taffy in the short time that we lived with Dad, and was sad that she couldn't take Taffy and keep her at our house. We still lived in an apartment at that time, and had nowhere to put Taffy either. We also were broke as MC Hammer in 1996 at that time, so there was no way that we could have afforded all of the likely vet bills that the end of Taffy's life would likely have entailed. So, Taffy had to go in the same manner that Elfie did.
Taffy was the last dog I ever had. My kids have really wanted a dog of their own over the years, but our houses in Utah never had a fence, so we didn't dare get a dog, sure it would run off and get lost all the time without a fence to pen it in. We also learned that Shantell is pretty allergic as well, so now we can't have a dog even though we have a fence. Instead, our kids had to have a cat as their pet.
I wonder if they'd even like a dog as a pet now, or are they eternally cat people?
