I ask my wife, Lisa, what she wants for her birthday. She says, "A puppy."

 I feel myself hit the brake though I am just sitting at the kitchen table.  My last dog, Bandit, and I were together for sixteen years.  I can't face another dog's life of long walks down winter streets picking up doo.  And the expenses!  We'd need a pet medical plan that included everything from psychotherapy to dental work. Besides, the city is no place for a dog. It can't even chase a cat without someone calling 911.

  "Bandit's been gone for only two years," I say.

 "Your period of grieving is over," she answers.

 "But..." I protest as articulately as I can. "but..."

 She strikes the final blow, the coup de grace. "Jesse is eight years old," she says. "A boy should have a dog."

 We begin checking the ads, calling the pound, the Humane Society, the shelters. We approach people walking dogs. We put out the word.
 We see him at the mall. It's puppy love at first sight.  He is a mystery mutt from a rescue shelter - abandoned but not abused.  As I check his teeth, he licks my face. That's all it takes.  He's sealed the deal with a kiss. The shelter manager assures us the dog will stay fairly small, she thinks it's a mix of Lab, border collie and cocker spaniel.

      When we bring him home, our meter reader who has his own professional expertise with dogs takes one look and says, "He's a Newfoundlander. Don't buy a leash, buy spurs and a saddle."

    Were we conned by a used dog dealer?  I examine Beau's paws like a fortune teller trying to predict his final size. I imagine him growing huge, sprawling across the lawn, a primeval beast horrifying the neighbours, wolfing down the paper as it lands upon the porch.
 "We will love him, no matter what," my wife assures me.

 The first weeks are the same with any baby - the throw up, the crying, the lack of sleep. With a puppy it also means standing in the rain at 4 am waiting for his bowel movement.  When I try to sneak inside to get my book he starts to howl. I want to howl back but my wife cautions me that he has abandonment issues.

 We look through dog care books like Dogspeak: How to Talk to Your Dog, What's Bothering Your Dog, The Wolf Within, Why Does My Dog Drink Out of the Toilet?; Answers and Advice.  I thumb through The Tao of Bow Wow feeling bewildered.  I always got along fine with my previous dogs. They got along fine with me. We never examined our feelings and certainly not our expectations for the relationship.
 I rush home every noon hour to take Beau for his walk. I try to think of it as quality time. We're bonding. Sometimes he fails to "do his duty". I begin to wonder, "Is it him or is it me?"

 All day long, it's "Where's Beau?", "Who's on Beau duty?" "Look at Beau, isn't he cute!"  We keep the camera and videocam within arm's reach. We invent pet names like Beau Diddley, Beau Piddley, Little Beau Pee. But not Bobo. Apparently that's disrespectful.
 We cradle him in our arms, a very hairy baby with surprisingly sharp teeth.  Our friends send gifts: chew toys, his own panda for bedtime and a puppy book to record his first bark, his first sleepover. (I don't recall baby books for my first two children).

 Beau's house training goes well except when I give him give a fried chicken skin that leaves a black mark on my record and a brown mark on our rug.  Kennelling helps.  We use a roomy travel cage as a puppy crib which he will not dirty. It also cuts down on damage. So far, our only loss is a Thermos which was broken by our cat trying to escape Beau's playful nips.  Cats are from Venus. Dogs are from Mars.

 Our cat is at present displaced, disgusted and generally dissed off. She spends her days in the basement rafters and her nights hanging with a tough crowd of tabbies. I'm concerned that she's loitering outside the Seven Eleven bumming smokes and cans of Sheba with Tender Beef. If she ever learns to use the phone, her first call will be to the Humane Society.

 In this, our first month, we have been training Beau as much as he has been training us. I am obeying commands like "Wake up!", "Take a walk", and "Run!"  There's some really demanding ones like "Stop Beau from trampling the flowers!" and "Stop Beau from barking, biting, dumping on the neighbour's lawn!"

    I do appreciate some tricks Beau is teaching me. Like new ways to laugh and to cuddle.  He gets me to relax by flopping over my feet for a snooze. He gets me to enjoy the world every time he rushes out the door.

 Yet I recently read about some radical animal activists. They say pets are slaves. We have corrupted them for our amusement. We must return them to the wild. I try to imagine packs of poodles and chihuahuas tracking deer through the snow.

 Beau spends so much of his life with his human "pack" how will he even know he is a dog?  Then I think about the self development books at McNally's on finding your self, realizing your inner nature, becoming the true you.  We humans don't seem to know what we are, either.  Or what we were or should be.  Maybe that's what dogs and humans have in common.  We know what we are. So we compromise our "true natures" and we become friends.

 Welcome, Beau, to this peculiar family of human/canine beings.  We will train you and you will train us. Good dog, Beau. Let's all try to be good dogs.

     THE END

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