Adventures of Scruffy (A totally true story)

[Snafu]

We picked him up at the Chapala animal shelter, medium build, 4 legs, great haircut, seemed likable. While we were filling out the paperwork to take him home, the lady at the office warned us, “he´s a peeér”. As we looked down at him, he was taking great pleasure in peeing on the office desk. I remember thinking it was funny at the time, the lady in the office failed to notice the humor. Then came another warning, “He´s an escape artist too”. Each morning when the office crew arrived, he would be out of his cage, running loose, causing all the other dogs to bark. Miguel was his name, escaping was his game. So off we went, still thinking, “Gee, he seems adorable”

The wife and I hadn´t been happy with the name Miguel, so on the way home we came up with the name Scruffy, just seemed to fit better. Home at that time was a furnished Condo rental. We had purchased a house but had decided to remodel it before moving in. We spent the day with Scruffy, getting to know one another.

That night we decided to go out for dinner. Not expecting to be gone more than an hour, we left Scruffy at home. We took him for a walk just before we left and figured he could go an hour without peeing.

We got back within the hour. We had just ate tacos from a street stand. As we entered the living room, we saw it was a disaster. Scruffy was wagging his tail, excited to see us, while all around us was destruction. The long heavy drapes were down off their rods, the shears behind them ripped apart, the throw pillows were on the floor, both the sofa, and chair cushions were pulled down, newspapers all torn up, flower vase tipped over on the dining room table. Then we looked in the bedroom. The bedspread was pulled off the bed, the pillows were ripped up, feathers were everywhere, papers on my computer desk were ripped up and on the floor. We were both in shock, I remember all either one of us could say was “Oh my God”, over and over. Finally my wife said, “at least he didn´t pee”, I said, “Thank God it´s not our furniture”

In the midst of all this, came a knock on our front door. It was our next door neighbor, whom we didn´t know, and she was pissed. We were fortunate to have a front door positioned were she couldn´t see in the house. She started yelling, she had been ill all day, was trying to get some rest, and the dog was barking, no, make that screaming, the whole time we were gone. Then she started in on how we´re not supposed to have a dog in the Condo. She yelled at us for 5 minutes or maybe an hour, seemed like forever, then she left.

What we hadn´t noticed is that somewhere in all the yelling from our neighbor, Scruffy had gone out, on the street, at night, in the dark. As soon as we figured out he wasn´t in the Condo, I ran out to look for him. I noticed some neighbors were having a party, our entire street was covered in Mercedes Benz autos. I walked up the hill calling for Scruffy, all the while wondering, since we only named him a few hours ago, did he even know his name. I walked as far as I could but no Scruffy to be found.

As I got back close to the Condo I passed the party again. There were some people standing outside, drinks in one hand, cigarettes in the other. They heard me calling for Scruffy and asked if I was looking for a dog. I said “yes”. They said, “a white one”. I said, “yes”. They said, “he´s in the party, go on in”. My jaw dropped. I walked into the house, there must have been 50 people there, all in suits and gowns, me in torn Levi´s and a dirty shirt. I looked around and there was Scruffy, on their couch, laying there on his back, with three strange women rubbing his tummy and fussing all over him. I walked over and apologized and said, “let me get him out of here”. They jumped up and said, “oh, can´t he stay, he´s the life of the party”. I said, “no, I best get him out of here”, and made as quick an exit as I could.

The next morning we decided to move Scruffy to the house we were remodeling. We had a crew of five working there, it had a wall, most of the time somebody was there, what could possibly go wrong? The crew worked till three everyday and we always showed up at least by four to make sure everything was locked up. We were continually back and forth all day. Scruffy and the workers got along well. One of the workers always came back around seven to spend the night there for protection.

That night around five we decided to go get some dinner. Since there was nothing in the house, no doors or windows, and it had a seven foot wall around it, we figured the most that could happen is Scruffy would bark for a while, but he had to get used to being alone. So off to dinner we went.

Again, we were only gone for an hour. When we returned, we found Scruffy lying on the sidewalk in front of the house. We both looked at each other, how could he get out? The gate was locked, nobody else had a key, what happened? The only way to find out was to lock him inside again and leave, not too far, we wanted to watch. We locked him inside and went across the street to see what would happen. Our fence was seven foot high, the bottom half was brick, then bars on top and a chain link fence inside the bars. To our amazement, Scruffy just climbed the chain link fence to the top and jumped down the other side. As soon as he saw us he ran over to us. So now we couldn´t leave him alone at the house. We knew we needed to have the crew extend the wall with brick only, another expense. We waited with Scruffy until the night watchman showed up and figured he´d stay inside as long as someone else was there.

The next night we knew we would have to take Scruffy to dinner with us. We all got in the car and headed to a taco stand, back in them days, there were hundreds of stands and we wanted to try them all. Keeping Scruffy in the car as we got out, turned out to be a challenge, but we finally succeeded. We positioned the car where Scruffy could see us, rolled up the windows to keep the barking noise down and sat down on the street to eat. As we walked back to the car after eating, we both commented on how well it had worked out taking Scruffy with us to dinner. We got in the car, fussed over Scruffy a bit, I put on my seatbelt, my wife reached for hers, and as she pulled it over, it just fell in her lap. I was surprised at first and was trying to figure out what was wrong when I heard the wife start in with the “Oh my God´s” again. Scruffy had eaten clear through the seat belt, literally eating it in half. We had the dog from hell.

[nopalesflower]

Oh, what a lovely story. Scruffy is a jewel. I adopted one like him many years ago. Her name was Inga and she did the same thing. After destroying and escaping and giving me a nervous breakdown she finally understood she was going to be loved no matter what she did and she turned out to be one of the best dogs I ever had. Keep loving her. It will be worth it in the end.

[Xena]

Well written, snafu, and funny--now. Though I suspect you were not laughing at the time. Thanks for sharing.

[mattoleriver]

Great story, I hope there are more to come.

George