Dog tale

Maria has decided we need a second dog.
And she has decided it should be an Australian shepherd, mainly because she had an Aussie when she was a kid and was very fond of it.
I like Aussies too, but I wasn't feeling any particular desire for a second dog. , Now that she's stopped rolling in backyard poop, Ruthie the Wonder Dog is really all the dog I need.
My friend Skip, who retired from the newspaper about five years before I bailed out, has taken to adopting strays. He and his wife now share their suburban home with seven dogs and it's freaking pandemonium whenever a stranger comes to the door. We toyed with the idea of taking their most recent acquistion - a golden retriever named Belle - off of their hands, but Skip's wife Gloria isn't letting Belle go. Probably just as well, since shortly after her arrival, Belle demonstrated that she knew how to open a regrigerator and remove and devour whatever interested her inside it. She seems to favor dairy products - yogurt and cottage cheese, but finished off a pizza the other night. Skip has blocked the fridge door with planters and barstools to no avail. Belle just moves them and helps herself whenever nobody is looking.
I was taken with the novelty of having a dog that smart, but decided I have enough to fill my days without having to stay one step ahead of a refrigerator-raiding dog.
So when Belle left the picture, Maria began lobbying hard for an Aussie. She called friends with Aussie connections and she made the rounds of the animal shelters.
This week, she called me from work to say the Animal Welfare League had a year-old black Aussie they call Reno. Reno apparenly ran away from home a month ago and spent the last few weeks as a guest in another family's home. Over the course of his visit, his hosts discovered he is very smart and knows a bunch of tricks. Apparently Reno wasn't getting along with the host's dog, so he ended up in the shelter.
Maria and I went over to the shelter at noon Wednesday to meet Reno.
It's horribly distressing and depressing to walk past all of those caged dogs, all of them up on the chain-link begging you to "Get me out of here, for the Love of God! Take me home! Please! Please! Please!"
All but one red heeler, who lay in the back of his enclosure staring at the wall. Turns out his owners moved and left him behind, chained to his backyard doghouse. Neighbors gave him food and water and finally called the authorities when it became obvious the owners weren't coming back.
"He's depressed," one of the shelter workers observed. No shit. I don't think I've ever seen a dog so depressed. He gave us a disinterested sidelong glance and then turned back to his wall.
Dogs who don't appeal to visitors enough to be adopted are euthanized. That's a politically correct way of saying Executed by Lethal Injection. Unless he gets it together, the heeler is a goner.
Reno, however, is guaranteed a home on the strength of his personality. We took him and an interesting looking puppy out into the big fenced play area and he ran and leaped and rolled and had a grand time, his sleek black coat glistening in the warm May sun. He ran with me, came when I called him, jumped so high to greet me that his head was at my eye level and seemed enthusiastic about everything.
He is, in short, a terrific dog.
But he's an Aussie. They're bright, enegetic working dogs who need to herd things and have lots of room.
Our house sits on a 55x165-foot lot and we have nothing to herd, except ourselves. Since Maria works at her newspaper 10-12 hours a day, it would fall to me to entertain the dog and I don't know that I can spare the time. Reno deserves an interesting, fulfilling life and I worry that he would be bored to the point of becoming destructive if he lived here. His entertainment would hinge on how well he would interact with Ruthie. Ideally, they could become friends and entertain each other.
So we're taking Ruthie to meet Reno at noon today and romp around the play area see how they get along. If it's a good match, we can bring Reno home as early as tomorrow.
Maria didn't much care for the name "Reno" and I wasn't crazy about it either.
Standing in the shower yesterday morning, running through possible names, I recalled the Simpsons episode where Homer decides he needs a more glamorous name and has his name changed to Max Power. He also suggests that Marge change her name to Hootie McBoob.
So, if the sleek black Aussie comes to live with us, he will become Max Power.
Stay tuned.