A Final Thought: Meet Mali

By Mitch Allen

When we lost our dog Bogart last summer, I thought that was it for us. After 40 years of marriage, my wife and I would finally live dog-free. I was looking forward to it: Staying late in downtown Cleveland for dinner instead of coming home to feed a critter, sleeping late instead of getting up to take a dog outside, enjoying the smell of brand-new carpet without worrying about tinkle and poop.

But after about eight months of this newfound bliss, my wife got “the itch.”

“Do you think we should get a dog?” “Do we really want to live the rest of lives without a dog?” “I sure do miss having a dog. Don’t you?”

“Let’s get a dog,” I relented.

Most of our other pets were rescue animals, but this time we agreed on a puppy, except my wife didn’t come home with a puppy. She came home with a tiny, lovable, furry little ball of pure love. We named her Mali. She’s a miniature golden doodle, so I call her “Mali Polly Doodle Doodle Doo,” and she has stolen my heart.

When I first saw her, I flipped her over to find the zipper where the batteries go. She looked like a stuffed animal. To this day she loves to roll over and have her belly rubbed. It’s our morning ritual. When the sky begins to lighten, she climbs on me and rolls over for her morning rub, which would go on all day if I did not have a job.

I don’t trust her to make it downstairs to the back door without having an accident, so each morning I carry her down. She flops in my arms like a rag doll and nuzzles my neck until we get outside.

Of course, being cute simply offsets another more sinister characteristic: She’s a dangerously curious hellion.

If you drop something—anything—Mali appears out of nowhere and snatches it before you can bend over to pick it up. She runs away with it, cutting her eyes at you in a way that says, “I don’t know what this thing is, but if you want it, it must be valuable, so therefore, I want it.” It could be a paper towel, a pair of reading glasses or a TV remote.

Mali successfully passed the first course of a puppy training academy, but not the second. She can sit, stay, shake, roll over and give you a high five, but she cannot graduate to the next level until she learns “Drop it,” a phrase that to Mali means “Run away with it and hide it.”

Here’s an example:

“Drop it, Mali! Drop it!” my wife cried. “Mitch, stop Mali! She has a condom in her mouth!”

A condom? What? How? Can she open dresser drawers now? I chased her down and forced her jaws open, employing a small piece of hot dog as encouragement.

It turned out not to be a condom, but a small, black plastic square of old ant bait.

That’s right, poison.

We haven’t used that brand of ant bait for 20 years, so she must have found it on one of her stealth missions to the basement. She has a way of doing that, of finding the most dangerous thing in the room and playing with it.

My late brother was apparently this way, too. At my aunt’s funeral in Alabama a couple of years ago, my cousin asked me, “Do you know what my favorite memory of your brother is? It’s the time he found your grandfather’s loaded pistol and chased me around the house with it.”

“What!?” I said, in shock. I had never heard this story.

“It’s true. He was only age 2 or 3. Your grandmother was horrified and screaming at the top of her lungs, ‘Stop him! Stop him!’”

Yeah, that’s Mali.

She’s older now, almost a year, yet she’s still adorable and still searches the yard for rabbit poop to nosh on. It caused an intestinal infection once, and we had to give her antibiotics. Our vet calls rabbit poop “canine caviar.” Dogs love it.

I’m trying my best to take care of this precious creature, but she has the curiosity of a cat. I just hope she has nine lives.

She’s already used three.

Mitch@MimiVanderhaven.com