Pancho the Puppy

I can now officially be called the crazy dog lady. I have a new one, a three-legged Australian Shepherd named Pancho who is the reason I cry when I see those Pedigree commercials about rescue dogs.

But Pancho isn’t a rescue dog. Not really.

About this time last year, my son began begging for an Australian Shepherd puppy. He even had him picked out. He found a puppy online, called the breeder, and found out that Pancho the puppy was, indeed, available. All that he needed for the puppy to be his were a major credit card and mom’s consent.

We already had Laverne and Shirley and a crazy-ass Bengal cat. And in the past, he’d begged for a Chinese Water Dragon and quickly returned it. I told him no.

A couple of weeks later, I was awakened by an Australian Shepherd puppy licking my face. My ex had purchased little Pancho and brought him to my kid.

Here’s a tip for all the divorced people of the world. Hell, it’s a tip for allthe people of the world: don’t buy a dog for another person’s house. If you buy a dog, it’s yours.

My kid left for school that morning, and little Pancho looked up at me as if to say, “Looks like it’s just the two of us. What’s the plan?”

I drove the puppy to the condo complex my ex was developing and put him in the clubhouse. Then I sent my ex a text that read, “Your dog is in your clubhouse.”

His reply: “That’s our son’s birthday present.”

My response: “His birthday is not for four months. Try again.”

Pancho lived with my ex for a day or so, spending his days in a crate in the garage. I drove my son over to the house in the afternoons to walk Pancho. Then the dog was sent to obedience school for two weeks. But the thing about obedience school is that it only works if the owner participates. Pancho’s owner did not.

My ex found Pancho another home about two hours away from us. My kid was sad, but he knew the people, so he understood that it was a clear case of making the best of a bad situation.

But then the situation worsened. A couple of months later, my kid got a text from the man saying that Pancho had broken his leg and that he might have to be put to sleep. He read the text aloud to me as I was cooking dinner.

I laughed out loud. I thought it was a joke. But then I looked up at my kid.  He was in as much pain, I think, as Pancho was.

I called the man. He had put Pancho the puppy into the back of his pickup truck for a trip to the vet. Pancho jumped out of the truck and broke his leg so badly it couldn’t be fixed.

“But he’s not a horse,” I said to the man.

“That’s what the vet said. He doesn’t know if it can be fixed, but he went crazy when I suggested putting the dog down.  They’re going to amputate the leg.”

That was last summer. Pancho healed quickly, and he got around on three legs very, very well. In fact, he’s quite a handful on just those three legs. I know, because my son and I took him to the beach with us in January. I carried that heavy dog up and down the stairs for two days before I realized he’s quite capable of managing stairs on his three legs.

A month ago, I got a text. “We don’t want Pancho any more. He keeps eating our other dog’s $70 radio collars. Do you want him?”

Yes. I did. For starters, I couldn’t bear to see my kid hurt again. And I knew that the three-legged Pancho might not fare so well in the rescue dog system. But maybe the bigger reason is that he’s another someone that my ex pursued and then decided he didn’t want. Like me, he got terribly hurt in the process. Pancho, as it turns out, is a kindred soul.

Call me crazy.