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carrying anything, Buddy’s main goal was to carry it for them. Not such a good idea if the item happened to be a cake or a glass of red wine .
    We consistently had to caution people of his peculiar behavior and try to assure them that this dog was not going to hurt them. They rarely believed us and often glared at us with a mixture of apprehension and loathing. The more they backed up to escape this monstrosity, the more Buddy interpreted this as an invite to jump higher and faster. This was another one of the bad habits that he had acquired prior to living with us that we had to break him of.
    Some people suggested kneeing him in the chest to make him stop. I did not have the heart to use any blunt force with him. All I kept thinking was that h e would get tired eventually — wouldn’t he?
    Those who were not terrified did not know what to do so they nervously laughed. This only encouraged Buddy more. We were in an awkward position of trying to get people to come over to our house despite Buddy’s over-eager hospitality .
    Only our dog-loving friends found the experience somewhat enjoyable. For the rest, we really wanted to post a sign instructing on how to act near him :
    Please speak to him in a calming voice , and just don’t get up quickly. Do not laugh too loud, don’t look at him, and don’t move around too much. In addition, do not carry your drinks anywhere near him , and do not leave your valuables anywhere that he can see them. If he is misbehaving , turn your back and ignore him ( as if this is possible). Do not pet him unless he is sitting, etc.
    We never did post that sign, but now that we look back, perhaps it m ight have helped.
    It was important to us to keep him included in our family outings, so one day we decided to bring him to my mother’s house for a party. Again, we assumed that after a long walk and a half - hour car ride, he would be tuckered out and would calm down. Wrong . He ran through the house like an unleashed maniac, recklessly exploring all rooms within seconds.
    I completely forgot about some of the things in my mother’s house and did not doggy-proof it quite as well as I had thought . For example, my mother has little stuffed animals carefully arranged in a decorative sled. Within minutes of us being there, Buddy had dug through the stuffed animals and grabbed two or three of them in his mouth. He then ran top speed again, barking and jumping all over the place and terrorizing everyone there.
    He ran downstairs and discovered my two cockatiels in a cage whic h he promptly jumped on, scattering bird food and feathers all over the place before I could catch up to him . Thankfully, the birds survived it, but Buddy was insistent and kept trying to play with them. I shut the door and locked Buddy out of the birds’ room but he kept crying incessantly by the door. After a few more hours of this, we had no choice but to take him home. He was completely obsessed with becoming friends with the birds. I don’t think they shared his enthusiasm.
    His behavior was similar to that of a problem child whose behavior the parents complain about , but that everyone else finds hysterical. He wa s methodical in his thinking and ha d the greatest sense of humor. If you could step back for one moment and move away from the scientific aspect of dogs versus humans, Buddy wa s the epitome of a stereotypical wise - ass kid. His motive wa s never to hurt, but to try to make you laugh, play, and well, sometimes to dominate. He could push the most patient person to the point of an explosive temper and then bring them back with his beautiful eyes that exclaim ed, “I was just playing!”
    Since he’d learned all of these bad behaviors before we adopted him, i t grew to the point where we needed to strategically determine his next move before he did. Once we were made privy to his way of thinking, things started to make sense , and on rare occasions we actually won a few of the battles. Slowly, but surely,