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I can relate several humorous stories about how we got our prior dog Kristie, a mixed breed black lab and Doberman pincher. She was a pound dog that my wife's older brother dropped off on us in the middle of the night. The previous night we had to put my wife's dog down due to cancer of the kidneys.

Obviously we were still grieving of the loss of my wife's dog "Tara". My wife's older brother is a very emotional person when it comes to the loss of loved ones, including dogs. The next evening we had to attend a office Christmas party which neither one of us were thrilled to attend. So we left the party early.

We were not looking forward to coming home to a empty, lonely, quit home without "Tara". We put the key into the front door, much to our surprise we could hearing the scrapping of paws on our kitchen tile and the barking of excitement and joy of a dog. We both said what did your brother do this time. When we reached to top of the landing we had our first vision of "Krazy Kristie".

"Krazy Kristie had been tied to our refrigerator door. We both feared that the dog would cause the refrigerator to collapse and fall over. When I untied the dog I noticed a deep raw gash around Krisie neck from having a chain tied to her neck. We quickly figured out that she was an abused neglected dog who never was inside a home.

My wife and I tried to call her brother who by this time had passed out due to drinking his wine. So we had a discussion about what to do with the dog. Kristie had immediately bonded with me and was super affectinate to me. So I ask the wife if we should return the dog to the pound in the morning. kristie knew what we were talking about and gave my wife and myself that look of sad puppy eyes. So we decided to keep her. That was the beginning of our relationship with the female version of Marley and me.

Kristie turned out to be the smartest, most loveable, most huggleable dog that we could have hoped to have had. Of course I flunked out of dogging trainging with Kristie. We both spend too much time socializing with other dogs and people than training.Of course we made the mistake of allowing her to sleep on the bed with us. She would be in the middle of us and sleep on her back with all four paws stiff as a board straight up in the air. Meanwhile my wife and I would be pushed to the opposite ends of the bed.

Now, on the other hand Kristies was the most stubborn, sneaky dog when it came to food she was the great crook. One time I had left a bag of pistachio's nuts on the counter in the kitchen. When I came home from work for lunch, the bag was gone, the pistachio nuts were gone, but the kitchen floor was covered with the shells. She had figured out how to split the shells to eat the nuts. If she had spent more time understanding the words "No, No bad dog" she would not have been as confused as to wither her name was Kristie or "No, No bad girl".

On another occasion I was watching the ball game between the Red Sox and Yankees in the living room. I heard Kristie pushing her water bowl around in the kitchen. When I got up she pushed the water bowl under our Poland Spring Water cooler and she was using the bottom of her chin to pushed the water into the bowl. Is she smarter than a eighth grader?

We had both Kristie and our beloved German Shepard named Ceazar from 1993 to 2004. Ceazar lived with us until July of 2008. The more patience, love, understanding and some training, our little "pack" bonds grew stronger and deeper. The humorous life lesson is that with love even a "No,No bad girl" will bring joy to your home,and will melt your heart.

Learn more about this author, Brian Cody.
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