As In: It’s a wonder he survived for as long as he did. What follows is the saga of our dog, Pablo, the Labrador Retriever.

We lived very near the beach, and many mornings I took him there to romp in the sand and the waves. He, however, preferred to smell garbage cans, other dogs’ poop and other dogs’ rear-ends. Star, our neighbor’s dog was sometimes down at the beach at the same time, but Star was a dog’s dog.

Star and Pablo would play for sixty seconds or so, and then Pablo would come crashing back at me and into my arthritic knees — eventually damaging them permanently — while Star continued to play in the waves.

Of all the dogs we’ve owned, Pablo was really the worst behaved of the lot. I called him Freak Dog. As I said, he was a Labrador Retriever, but he didn’t retrieve things, and I don’t think he ever lived in Labrador. Labradors are supposed to love the water, helping fishermen drag in their nets, but he was not interested in getting a job by the water. He always wanted to be next to me. I would be touched except that the closer he was, the more likely it was that I had food in my hand or mouth.

He was a compulsive over-eater, just like me. I normally controlled most of what went into his mouth, unless of course…

He broke into the garage and scarfed up the cat’s food, or the cat’s litter,

Snail Pellets (a near-death event), or

if he somehow (we never did figure out this one) got into the kitchen cabinet and polished off his allergy medication (Another near-death event in which our neighbor actually called Animal Control when he peeked over the fence and noticed Pablo staggering around in the back yard while we were at work.),

A supplement for his food — a powdered substance that’s supposed to be sprinkled on his food by the teaspoonful — but he ate the entire bag. Also in a kitchen cabinet!

I must say the poop piles were very interesting with that one. Big beige pancakes all over the backyard.

Once, when my husband and I were both looking at the computer, we noticed he had disappeared from the room. We knew better than to let it go.

Instinctively, I knew that it involved the t-bones I was marinating on the kitchen counter. He had high-tailed it into his dog house, a place he normally avoided at all costs because, if you recall, he wanted to be right next to me at all times. Both steaks had disappeared, along with a loaf of bread.

We quickly ran downstairs to see him swallowing one of the steaks. The other steak and the loaf of bread were still intact. We retrieved the steak and the bread. They were not too damaged, and we, shall we say, dusted them off and shared a dinner that night — a little more bread than steak.

One day at the beach, I noticed what looked like hundreds of small, round tissues. At first I thought it was medical waste, but no, they were perfectly shaped and were not made of tissue. They were small jellyfish that had washed up on the shore to die. Pablo thought they were delicious. He scooped up a dozen or so before I could pounce on him and drag him home.

My husband often took him for bike rides; i.e., he rode, Pablo followed on paw. One day, he stopped short, almost throwing my husband over the handlebars. His bowels were moving — Pablo’s, not my husband’s — and he skidded to a stop to do his business.

What he produced, along with some poop, was a pair of panties, and there to observe Larry pulling a thong out of Pablo’s ass were a couple of elderly ladies out for their morning constitution. They were fascinated by this sight and said to my husband, “Oh dear”.

Yes, Pablo passed many interesting things — not only panties, but panty hose, socks, paper, and other, various unidentifiable objects.

My sister-in-law was visiting with her daughters one weekend. This time I don’t know what Pablo had eaten, but it was green. I’m basing that on the color he vomited all over my sister-in-law and the living room rug. I don’t think she ever felt the same about him.

There were other things he ate — actually he would eat just about anything — like the cube of butter on the kitchen counter to which my mother commented when I told her, “Well, where did you leave that cube of butter?” She never appreciated my housekeeping skills.

“On the counter, Mom, pushed back as far as possible.” Just like the package of 98 tortillas I had purchased for a Cinco de Mayo party. Yes, every single tortilla, including the wrapper, was gone — even though they were “pushed back as far as possible” on the counter.

One year we received a government tax rebate for $600. We were blissfully discussing what to do with it — “Should we take a long weekend or should we buy a new bedspread?” — when we noticed Pablo was acting strangely — as you have learned, not an uncommon event. He seemed to be uncomfortable and unable to move his bowels. Don’t ask for a description of what that looked like.

We took him to the vet. He was x-rayed, and it was found that the sand he had scooped up, along with those tiny jellyfish, or who-knows-what-else from the beach, had turned to concrete in his intestines.

Guess what it cost to run an i.v. and keep him overnight? (Please refer back to “government rebate” above.)

He was a doofus and often a victim of other dogs’ attacks. Yes, he was pretty cowardly, but that was part of his charm. He had not a vicious bone in his body, and we loved him dearly. We had saved his life numerous times, but when he was about twelve, he developed some intestinal bleeding, and because he was in such pain, we had to put him down. We did it at home, and we got to say goodbye, and despite all his annoying escapades, we miss him still.
And this is The End of my Dog Tale.