It’s been a long time since I welcomed home a puppy. In my experience they are just too much work—give me a nice, mellow, housebroken, adult shelter dog any day. But back in April, the day of the dreaded income tax deadline, I was moved to rescue a 6-month-old homeless brindle Pit Bull. I named her Draga ("dear one" in Hungarian, the language of my ancestors). Then I nicknamed her DD, in honor of my accountant, Diane, and her specialty, Deductions. DD would be my tax shelter dog. Little did I know just how dear this dog would be, or how dearly I would pay for my mitzvah.
DD quickly showed me that she needed housebreaking, so I hauled out the training crate. Then I learned that DD’s song is Cole Porter’s "Don’t Fence Me In;" I have never met a dog so allergic to confinement. Her bark was so shrill that it’s a wonder the glassware survived. I swear I and my other dogs suffered serious hearing damage.
Fearing not only Tinnitus but eventual eviction, I gave DD Kongs stuffed with a mix of peanut butter and alcohol-free valerian (a plant-derived sedative available at health food stores). Most dogs hate the bitter taste of valerian; DD grew addicted to the stuff, lapping it up happily. Once, when I wasn’t looking, she jumped up and swiped the bottle from the table, biting off the rubber cap to suck out the contents. Alas, the more valerian DD drank, the less it worked. Her barking became unbearable. I reluctantly folded up the crate.
I was hopeful during those first few days, but my cage-free chick soon dashed all hope. DD proved a genius at moving barstools alongside my metal kitchen shelves, leaping up to gain easy access to foodstuffs, books, office supplies, and anything else she encountered, sweeping everything off the shelves and onto the floor. Happily, she failed to reach my stash of Lindt Intense Orange chocolate bars.
My other dogs are such paragons of virtue that I confess I’d lapsed in hewing to the most important rule laid out in my own book, Animal House Style Train yourself to be diligent about putting away your cherished belongings. DD proved herself to be an even more uncompromising minimalist than the brilliant Calvin Klein. Applying her pearly whites to every cherished belonging I own, she forced me to pare down.
The casualties included prescription eyeglasses (including an irreplaceable vintage pair from the 1950s;), a Swiss leather dog collar; and several shoes, including brand-new Ferragamo loafers, twice-worn Jack Rogers Navajo sandals (the ones made famous by Jackie Kennedy), and my favorite Ralph Lauren lace up boots, a gift from my mother upon my departure for college. Those boots survived a lot in 24 years, but they were no match for DD, who devoured them down to their Vibram soles. Well, at least I wouldn’t be shoeless come winter. After all, I still had my newish Benetton boots—and they, too, had Vibram treads. Wait, where did I put those? The next day, DD found them for me.
As I prepared to reintroduce the crate and outfit my problem child with a no-bark collar designed to dole out corrective spritzes of harmless citronella oil, it dawned on me that DD really stands for "Designer Dog." She’d redecorated my home down to the invisible atmospherics, and trained me to be more serious about putting pretty things in protective custody. It’s been a hard lesson, but I’m glad I re-learned it, because of all the pretties, DD is still one of the prettiest.
