Dogs in Hawaii
Introducing My Best Friend, Weirdo McBoo
He’s a good boy — yes, he is!
We’d been without pets since our kids reached late high school age.
With no one spending much waking time at home, it didn’t seem fair to animals to sit there all alone. Even after my husband retired, we lived in a condominium on Maui and our AOAO didn’t allow pets. He would technically have been allowed a service animal, but all the hoops it took to make it happen were beyond us.
After moving to Big Island and returning to home ownership, we decided to adopt dogs.
When we brought our first dog home from the local Humane Society, they had dubbed him Trevor. My instant reaction was a Bugs Bunny spasm as visions of every human Trevor I’d ever known whizzed unbidden behind my eyes.
Most of them were small-town boys, complete with southern “charm” if you would call it that. Dressed head to toe in dirt — dirty shit kickers, dirty jeans, dirty baseball caps. Throw in a little camo something or other, thumbs in belt loops, a smug smile on a face with a cheek full of Red Man, spitting brown sludge in the dirt while they talk to you.
There are, no doubt, Trevors that don’t fit this bill, but I haven’t met one. So, it was important to rename this poor dog least I conjure these visions every time I called his name.
Dog names.
We all have our own ways of naming our pets, sometimes based on the pet, sometimes on our own personal whims. Our adventuring and tendencies to wander led us to Big Island and adopted this poor dog tagged as Trevor. I decided the dog must be a Boo. As in, “Me and You and a Dog Named Boo” (Lobo, 1971). I sang it to him. He was not impressed, but the name stuck.
Boo didn’t seem to care what you called him. His responses seemed to indicate that he’d been both neglected and abused. He’s scarred along the pressure points along the back of his legs like he was tethered on concrete endlessly, a bare spot along the top of his tail where he’s pulled it loose out from under something. He ate every meal like he knew he would never eat again. And it took him from mid-April until Christmas before he looked me in the eye for the first time. He didn’t know how to play.
Slowly he learned. He knows there’s a meal twice a day just for him. But he still waits until our other dog is done so he can lick both bowls just to be sure nothing is wasted. And he’s at attention for his treats — chewie after his morning walk and cookie after the afternoon walk. More bites from every meal we eat and tiny treats for tv time in the evenings.
He’s mastered playing and has more energy than our younger dog. His frustration when his companion won’t stop napping and getting up leads to leg grabbing, ear nibbling, and yelping to get his companion to join him. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes he gets nothing but a condescending look, as the youngest is by far the smarter dog.
But Boo is undeterred. He has perfected the art of throwing his own toys and if no one else will play, he plays by himself, tossing his toys into the air over and over, rolling with them in his own world, like they’re his best friends. It’s earned him a new name. Weirdo McBoo.
Yep — he is my weirdo. He makes me laugh every day.
When the dogs get “zoomies” and run through the yard, he pounces on his friend like a cat. If I’ve been gone, he skips on his way to greet me and “snorfles” my legs and clothes to see where I’ve been. In the evenings, he crawls up by me on the couch while I write, does his best “vulture” pose between me and the screen to get my attention, and then paws my hands off the keyboard to rub his belly. At the end of the day, he snuggles into his bed alongside mine and waits for his goodnight kiss and blankie. What a spoiled boy he has become.
I don’t know what I’d do without him.
