A Dog like Frankie

This week I can celebrate my “gotcha” day for Frankie. Seven years ago I found myself without a dog after my sweet Oscar died of bone cancer. Oscar was only seven. Oscar was the next thing to a perfect dog, and I had hoped to have him for a few more years, but cancer is no respecter of age in people or dogs. I had planned to wait a while to get another dog even though my walks out on the farm suddenly seemed very lonely since I’ve had this or that walking dog with me all my life. When I got Max, a lab, some years ago, he was a very small pup, but I took him on walks with me. When he got tired, I would carry him for a while.

Oscar passed over the rainbow bridge in mid-October that year. After a couple of weeks, my granddaughter started hunting online for a new dog for me. She found one named Reuben at a nearby humane shelter and wanted to go with me to check him out. So, how do you say no to a granddaughter? I don’t think I know how to do that. LOL.

Anyway, off we went to the shelter on the day before Thanksgiving that year when she was off school.  Reuben was a cute dog. Very energetic. But he didn’t seem too interested in getting to know me when we went out into one of the pens to get acquainted. I took a walk around to look at the other dogs and noticed a dog the shelter had given the name Tyson. He had been picked up as a stray and was just that day available for adoption since they keep the dogs for a period of time to give any owner time to claim them. They had also just neutered him.

He stared through the wire mesh gate of his cubicle seeming to say “How about me?” I’m a sucker for a dog with wavy hair, so we asked to take him out for a walk. Not good at all on the leash, but in the little enclosure where we could turn him loose, he kept coming back to me, wanting to be petted, putting his head in my lap. I had found my dog.

My niece had a dog named Tyson and I didn’t think it fit this dog anyway. So, when I went back on the Friday after Thanksgiving and somehow got him in the car, I changed his name to Frankie. I should have known what I was getting into after that struggle getting him in the car and then driving home with one hand on the wheel and the other hand holding Frankie away from me. Yes, I did start out with him in the back of the van. The seats were no barrier to him as he wanted to ride up front. In my lap. Or perhaps he just wanted out of that car. Seven years later, we can finally get him in the car when he has to go to the vet with me pulling and my husband pushing. For the first few years he went berserk at the mere thought of getting in a car. I decided maybe it was because he’d been dropped by his former owners and deserted.

The humane shelter people told me he was two or three years old. He weighed 55 pounds at the time. Just the size dog I wanted and I was happy he would be out of his puppy days. The humane shelter people were wrong! Frankie was a wild teenager ready to chew anything and everything, didn’t know the word no, and gained 45 pounds in the next few months. He might have been 8 or 9 months old.

Frankie has been an adventure ever since. He likes to hunt anything that will run from him. If he spots a stray cat out in the field, it’s a mad race to chase it up a tree. He has given my feral cat, Mama Mia, a scare or two when he got away from me. He loves people and the sound of a kid in a neighbor’s yard is a temptation he can’t resist. He forgets that he’s supposed to be walking with me and goes wherever he wants. Most of the time he watches and follows me if nothing tempts him in another direction. But oh, the temptations out there for a dog like Frankie.

In spite of our large farm, I have to keep him on leash when we go walking until we are well away from the neighbors’ houses and even then, like this morning, he will sometimes take off, disappear, and then turn up in their yards doing some exploring and potentially bothering their chickens and ducks. So far, he hasn’t brought home a duck.

My daughter says that at least I get the benefit of some weight training when I tussle with him to make him do what I say. Sometimes I have to run to catch him although that is mostly just exercise for me since he can outrun me with no problem. Since I’ve had Frankie, I’ve rarely needed an alarm clock. He is ready to be up and at ’em early every morning. Maybe best, he gives me plenty of stories to tell, and Marley loves him.

For sure, Frankie is one of a kind, a dog with a mind of his own. Could be he needed a better trainer than I am, but he is a sweet fellow most of the time. He just needs some adventure in his life and he’s not afraid to go out and find it on his own.

Have you ever had a dog or cat that had a mind of its own? Do their adventures or Frankie’s make you smile?

This is the last post before I pick the winner of my 3 Hidden Springs mystery books. If you’ve already entered, you can get another entry by leaving a comment  on this post. If you haven’t entered yet, you still have time to beat the deadline of midnight EST  November 26, 2024. Also if you’ve already read the Hidden springs mysteries, Murder at the Courthouse, Murder Comes by Mail, & Murder Is No Accident, you can chose one of my other books instead but you’ll be exchanging one book for three. Remember, books make great presents and it is almost December. You do need to be at least 18 years old to enter. I’ll contact the winner by email on Wednesday and announce the winner here on my next blog post. Thanks for always making it fun to write new posts here.