Root Beer Moves Next Door

Moving is hard and residential real estate largely exists to make moving less stressful. Good agents make sure contract timelines accommodate one more Christmas in the old house or ensure students are at the new address for the start of school. While these agents are showing prospective buyers kitchens with waterfall countertops; you know who’s not on the house tour? The family dog. Children often tag along home shopping and enjoy claiming their next bedrooms, but how much say does Bailey the goldendoodle have? 

Our dog had none. Maui, the cattle dog mix, moved homes in 2018 without any input or warning. It was not an easy transition. Whether it was the height of the ceilings or the way the light hit off the windows, something about our new house didn’t work for Maui. He barked at shadows and was so agitated by this one vent in our loft that I was convinced there had to be a living animal in the attic. But a crawlspace investigation revealed nothing. We considered another round of obedience training. Someone suggested burning sage. At some point, Jenni’s solution was that Maui needed another dog. 

This struck me as a bad idea. We were already invested in one dog that was causing problems and the solution was more dogs?  It’s like when people suggest having a kid to save the marriage. Without agreement on another dog, Maui soldiered on in solitude battling the shadows and window reflections. 

While Maui is named for a Hawaiian Island, it was a trip to another that would change our canine destiny. During spring break on the Big Island, our next door neighbor agreed to watch Maui while simultaneously fostering a puppy from a local shelter. Root Beer was part lab, part Husky, and all puppy. His soulful eyes were surrounded by a black coat highlighted with a white chest and paws, like someone dipped him in paint. In between zip lines and shaved ice on our trip, we would receive text updates on Maui and how well he was getting along with the puppy, including pictures. Uh-oh.

Shortly after returning from vacation, I found my wife in my neighbor’s front yard holding a certain black dog in her arms. Witnessing this little dog doing everything to stay in Maui’s orbit and garner his attention was adorable and irresistible. Gangly and floppy, Root Beer had yet to grow into his long legs that pounced as he approached Maui and tried to latch on to his jowl. When Jenni and I had previously talked about theoretically getting a second dog, we wanted some assurance the dogs would get along. With a Maui/Root Beer lovefest on display it seemed like our hand was forced. We were informed that there was a queue of applications to adopt Root Beer and we could fill out paperwork and get in line. I made eye contact with Jenni and said, “Do what you must” and drove off to work knowing my wife is incredibly efficient and effective at paperwork.

I’ve seen it in new home construction and I now I’ve seen it with foster puppies–sometimes those people ahead of you on the waiting list, really aren’t waiting. They’ve either changed their mind or moved onto another house (or dog).  Although there were families on the list with lower deli numbers, none of them scooped up the little black dog. Our neighbor said Root Beer put no energy into impressing some suitors, laying on the ground and showing no interest in affection. Perhaps he knew there was a chance he could stay close to his foster mama. Chalk it up to efficient paperwork or Root Beer’s sandbagging, but by mid-April we had a second dog. 

Even moving next door can be challenging. It took a while for Root Beer to get acclimated to his new surroundings. Maui did seem to comfort him; the two spent hours chasing each other around the bushes and playing tug of war. Root Beer had an endless reservoir of energy and appetite to play. Maui, who’s six, would pick and choose his spots to make a run. When Maui had enough of this youngster, he would pin Root Beer and hold him down with his weight. As Root Beer flailed his legs and head to get free, Maui would catch his breath and ready for the next onslaught. 

Onboarding dog number two has not been without incident as Root Beer has been teething everything. The boys are currently hand watering our landscaping because Root Beer has acquired a taste for our irrigation lines. Our toilet paper budget has increased not due to COVID supply lines, but because Root Beer enjoys taking rolls down and ripping them to shreds. Multiple times I’ve come to home to discover some sort of teething disaster and Maui preemptively greets me. If his insightful eyes could talk, they’d say, “I told him not to chew up the library books, but he did it anyway.” 

Despite the new bite marks on our baseboards, it’s hard to imagine our house without Root Beer. Most importantly, Maui probably feels the same way and, as a dog, he has the luxury of not replacing baseboards. As Jenni likes to say, “We didn’t get a dog, Maui got an emotional support animal.” Maui didn’t choose to buy this house, but he would choose to have Root Beer here and that has made our house more of a home for him.