Scooter the Wonder Dog

We found Scooter at the DeKalb County Animal Shelter. He was purportedly 12 weeks old, abandoned by a dumpster with his eleven litter mates, and destined to be about 25 pounds when fully grown. He came home with us, a floppy-eared, silly-grinned mess.

And grew to 45 pounds of stubborn, dense, submissive-peeing, training-challenged caninehood. Scooter makes Marley, the world' s most impossible dog, look downright reasonable.

Scooter loves:

• Food. He lives to eat. He gulps it quickly, terrified someone will take it from him. He'll eat beyond bursting because his stomach just never feels full enough.
  
• Heat. Wherever there's heat - a furnace vent, the fireplace, the heat dish in the basement - Scooter will snooze happily for hours.
• Chasing his rubber chicken. We have a nightly routine. I sit in the chair in my bedroom and lob the rubber chicken through the door and down the stairs. He gallops down the stairs, snatches it, slobbers drool all over it, and returns it for another toss. Bonus time: tug of war, with me holding the head and him pulling one of the legs.
• Squirrels. His unattained goal in life is to catch a squirrel. Or a bird. Or the cat that roams lazily through the yard during his morning rounds.
• The Bark Park at Brook Run. Say "bark park" and he begins warbling desperately, lunging for the door and dancing in happy abandon.
• One four-letter word: WALK. Same reaction as the Bark Park.

Scooter hates:

• Getting his nails trimmed. He was kicked out of Pets Are People, Too because he bit a tech twice. So now he's cared for by the Dunwoody Animal Hospital, which prudently tranqs him, then gasses him. His pedi costs twice as much as mine.
• Rain. He'd rather hold his business than go in the damp grass, wet bushes, and anything beyond a light mist.
• Snow. It's just not RIGHT. The second he feels it under his paws, he's slinking back indoors.
• Fire alarms and thunderstorms. Both will send him to the corner of the family room, tucked behind T's recliner.
• Slightly ajar doors. He just can't figure out how to nose them completely open, so barks desperately to be let through.

That's Scooter. He's a handful. And the last dog I'll ever own.