English springer spaniel ‘Pudge’ rules happy Bangor home

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The first phone call (while a bit on the tasteless side of funny) made it all worthwhile.

“I’ve got some news,” I told my mom, who has grown accustomed to calls like this over the past 38 years.

“Really,” she said, waiting for the latest bombshell.

“We’ve had an addition to our family,” I told her.

Silence greeted the statement … the kind of silence a 38-year-old childless, newly engaged career bachelor expects to hear when he says something like this.

“It’s a dog,” I quickly explained … so that mom wouldn’t faint, stop breathing, or disown me.

“A dog?” she asked. “You really got a dog?”

Yes, I did. Rather, yes, we did. My fiancee … and her girls … and I … have allowed a pooch to take ownership of us (I tried to phrase this sentence the other way, but after reflecting on the past two weeks I realized that his life is probably very similar to the way it was before we took him home, while ours is anything but).

Of course, Mom wasn’t all that surprised. Not really.

She does (I assume) read this column … most of the time.

And she did (I hope) read that I was looking for some dog-buying advice from readers a while back.

But she also knows me. She knows I sometimes err on the side of … let’s call it spontaneous enthusiasm … and when given the chance to think things over, common sense (eventually) plays a role in the important decisions I make.

And since I hadn’t written about a dog in two or three weeks, I figure Mom figured I’d figured out life would be simpler if I remained pooch-free.

Nope.

This dog-owning (or vice versa) idea – one I’ve held close to the vest for 10 years or so – kept germinating. It kept coming up in private conversations with Dawn and the girls. And it kept sounding like a good idea.

I am, after all, an outdoors columnist. And Pudge (more about that name in a minute) is an outdoors dog.

He’ll swim. He’ll hunt birds (as soon as we both learn how). He’ll hike. He’ll probably even fish, as soon as he grows out of his pure puppy, gnaw-on-the-gunwales enthusiasm.

And he’s ours. Or, we’re his. That matter remains open for debate.

After asking for your help in deciding on a dog, I received several e-mails offering advice on everything from breed to gender to color.

Dog people (of which, I apparently am one) are very enthusiastic about their canine family members.

After a bit of discussion, Dawn and I decided an English springer spaniel would be the ideal mix of sporting and family dog.

Dawn (in addition to being so adept at campfire-building that she sometimes answers to “Fire Goddess”) is also a bit of an Internet expert. She tracked down leads, contacted breeders, and succeeded in generating a near-constant flow of puppy pictures from across the state … and elsewhere.

She planned a couple of litter visits … the first of which was to occur during a time I couldn’t join in.

She visited. Pudge put on what must have been a riveting show of puppy genius. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Dawn brought our new addition – a dapper black-and-white pup – to the Eastern Maine Sportsman’s Show later that night … just to say “Hi,” and to introduce the 10-week-old to his new (I’m still a bit uncomfortable with this label) father.

“They’ve been calling him Pudge,” Dawn informed me, explaining that at birth, Pudge was very, very short … and very, very round.

Since then, he had thinned out, and Dawn was lukewarm on the name.

“The name doesn’t mean much to me, and the breeder said we could change it if we wanted to,” she told me.

The girls, of course, loved the sound of Pudge (or, “Mr. Pudge,” as 7-year-old Molly likes to call him).

And me? Well, back when I was a kid who truly lived and died with the fortunes of the Red Sox, a certain Hall of Fame catcher did pretty well for himself while being saddled with the same nickname.

I looked at the dog and pictured that famous 1975 home run … Fisk waving, waving, waving the ball, trying to keep it fair.

I pictured it deflecting off the foul pole … (and conveniently forgot to picture the Sox losing Game 7).

“Well, Pudge means something to me,” I told her, scratching our new addition’s ears as he lapped my face. “I can live with that name if you can.”

She could. She did. And we have.

For the past couple of weeks, Pudge has begun to live up to his name (again). He is growing like a weed.

He has learned to sit and lie down and to come when called (when it suits him). He has learned that my fingers are more tasty than his chew toys, and I have learned that the dog-training experts who advise you to put your fingers in a puppy’s mouth – just so they’ll learn how hard they can chew before you squeal like a pig – probably wrote things like this while fat, sedentary cats slept on their laps.

Pudge has learned where to do his business (and I have learned how to pick it all up and dispose of it without gagging).

He has learned how to fetch (though the action is entirely instinctual … though letting go of the object he fetched isn’t quite second-nature … yet).

Soon, we’ll begin obedience classes. Pudge will probably learn a little. I’ll likely learn a lot.

And some day, we’ll both learn how to hunt birds.

At least that’s the plan. We’ll have to see what Pudge has to say about it.

After a couple months of pitching our “Win a Drift Boat Trip” contest, I’m happy to report that we have a winner.

Mike Horvers of Milford was randomly selected from a hefty box of entrants on Monday. The trip – a full-day guided fly-fishing journey with Dan Legere of the Maine Guide Fly Shop in Greenville, will be on June 29.

Thanks to everyone who entered.

John Holyoke can be reached at jholyoke@bangordailynews.net or by calling 990-8214 or 1-800-310-8600.