Young dog, trainable

Sun Wukong the Faux Foo isn't eager to learn new tricks unless they involve FOOd. Our daughter works on teaching him when she comes by, but our cat Xuxa has been more successful.

When Xuxa is hungry in the middle of the night, and her cat bowl is empty, she paws the plastic bowl which sits on a plastic tray. The bowl will roll and rattle, ominous and loud. Sleepers no longer sleep. Cursing happens.

A couple of nights ago I was upstairs and heard a curious racket downstairs. John was upstairs. Xuxa was upstairs.

I went downstairs and found Wu, rattling his plastic food bowl, in exactly the same manner as the cat. This is a dog who has never so much as whined, barked, or looked at us pleadingly to fill his bowl. He is clearly one observant dog.

Wu's favorite spot to relax? Sitting in the twirly computer chair, or his favorite box top.

Happy to Report

I am happy to report that our new dog has a name:

Sun Wukong the Faux Foo, Protector of Palaces and Deceiver of Women.

Wukong, or Wu for short. Fits him.

Sun Wukong is The Monkey King, "Aware of emptiness."

The Second Saga of Foo: Part III

Part I Part II

(Written by the rest of the family)

As convoluted and complex as the above story is, it doesn't even scratch the surface of the various machinations, lies, and logistical issues we faced.

Upon picking Faux Foo up at the groomer's, A. was very worried. A. called John on the phone: “Um, Dad? The dogs don't really look anything alike. Maybe we should do the switch in a dark place. Like maybe by candlelight and she won't notice?” We expected the con to be successful for maybe five minutes if we were lucky. How could she not notice that it wasn't her dog???

Then there was the issue of logistics. The dogs were shuttled between A. and Gabe's house several times, due to planned visits from Rose. Who had Faux Foo at any given time and who had real Foo was carefully choreographed.

After visiting with “Foo” at Gabe's house, Rose delighted in telling people that she definitely could have fooled John with the new dog, and isn't it amazing how much Foo looks like that cute dog at the groomer's?

The night of The Reveal, A. and J. had to get real Foo out of Rose and John's yard, replace him with Faux Foo, and switch collars. Unfortunately, Foo operates with Selective Hearing (like many teenagers) and refused to come when called. So J. had to run/crawl through the yard to get him, and make the return trip running/crawling through the yard with Foo tucked under his arm like a football.

It really worked so much better than any of us could have dreamed.

A Chinatown Foo

The Second Saga of Foo: Part II

For maximum suspense, read Part I first!

The following Sunday we stopped by the bachelor pad to check it out. Gabe and Cliff had been moving in for three or four days, Foo Dog was settled in, and the place looked great! I was ready to move in myself! Well, almost. Foo’s beard was very dark because he’d been digging in his new yard. He was playing with doggie toys, which was surprising -- normally Foo Dog spends his entire day impersonating a rug, and only comes to life briefly. Anyway, while taking pictures of the house, they captured me with Foo:

A few days later Gabe stopped by our house with Foo Dog. Foo romped about in the house a bit, then Gabe let him out in the backyard. When Foo came back in, it was apparent that he had learned very bad habits from Gabe and had been digging in our yard. I tried to clean his dirty beard with a wet washcloth. We chatted, then A. and Jonathan arrived. After visiting a bit, A. said, “Hey, what is this dog out here on the porch?” I looked around, and Foo was inside. I looked out on the porch and there was another Shih Tzu. It looked very much like Foo—the original Foo, without a dirty beard. I was stunned. What were the chances that there was another Shih Tzu in the neighborhood that looked just like Foo Dog? And that he would end up on my front porch? It gradually dawned on me that A. must have set this up.

As I slowly processed this information, my next thought was that John would never believe that I wasn’t behind it. There was nothing I could ever do to convince him. The first words out of my mouth (and please realize that I said this to my daughter) were, “You’ve ruined my marriage!” I was distraught. I looked around the room in a daze, and then thought I noticed the tiniest of smiles on John’s face. Everyone was looking at me, watching me realize, ever so slowly, that I had been had.

It was the perfect Double Con. Little by little I pieced it all together: Foo Dog had never dug in his new yard; Faux Foo had been the dog I had played with and held in my lap on Sunday. Faux Foo had come in with Gabe this evening, and I had tried to clean his darker beard to no avail because that was his natural color. Jonathan had sneaked into the backyard to retrieve the real Foo, and planted him on our front porch. I was a total dupe.

Poor Joyce at the groomers had been a reluctant conspirator in an involved family scam of hushed phone calls, secret code-talk, sudden lies, switched collars, and shuttled dogs between houses, with lots of suppressed giggling. She probably was worried, confused, and convinced that the entire family was crazy.

My husband is the nicest guy in the world. He really hadn't wanted the dog, even after learning of my feeble plot from A. But as soon as she said the words “double con,” his immediate and irrevocable reaction was, “YES! I must have that dog!”

Faux Foo is fitting into our family life beautifully. Don’t you think he looks a lot like the real Foo?

Left: Foo Dog, 9/9/07 Right: Faux Foo, 9/2/07

Different dogs, same oblivious human.

The Second Saga of Foo: Part I

I was picking up Foo Dog at the groomer’s a few weeks ago, and I exclaimed how beautiful he looked as he walked through the door. “That’s not Foo Dog,” said Joyce. She was right… it was a different Shih Tzu, with that familiar, appealing face. “Do you need another dog?” she asked, for it turned out that this little dog needed a home. His 90-year-old owner could no longer care for him, although why the man would have gotten a puppy when he was 89 years old is beyond me. As I started to say no, it occurred to me that YES! I did need another dog, for Foo Dog was moving out with my son Gabe into his new house. Gabe and I have had joint Foo custody, but Foo Dog was about to live full-time in a bachelor pad, with Gabe and Cliff and the Music Shed. My dream had been to eventually get another Shih Tzu, and this one seemed a Sign, an Omen, a Gift from Heaven, you might say.

So I considered. If I brought the “Faux Foo” home, would John even notice the difference? My assessment was, probably not. It was tempting. I told Joyce I was very interested, and that I’d get back to her. Then I embarked on a campaign. “A House isn’t a Home Without a Dog” was the name of the campaign. John wasn’t buying, and John eventually got very bored with the campaign, put both his feet down and said, “NO!” In my excitement, since I so very much wanted him to say “yes,” I perhaps told other people, and myself, that what he had said was indeed “yes.” Perhaps.

I licked my wounds and hoped that he might change his mind one day. I told Joyce that I understood that she might find another home for Faux Foo, but that I hoped eventually John might change his mind, if the dog was still available.

(For a good time, see The First Saga of Foo)