The Pack

Theo

Theo is the one who keeps order. He listens better than any ninety two pound dog has a right to. If Kelly or I step out of sight, he goes on high alert, staring at the spot where we disappeared, and he doesn’t look away until we’re back.

He lives for the water. Throw a ball in and he’ll swim after it as many times as you’ll throw it. In a pool in Florida he bounced a ball off his nose back to me ten or twelve times in a row, like we were playing volleyball.

Unlike Sawyer, Theo has always been terrified of the zero turn. The second I fire it up, he retreats to the same spots at the edge of the property, as if the tree line were a force field, and watches me from there. This is the same dog who snatches golf balls out of the air from twenty-five yards away and picks off my chip shots before they touch the ground. Every so often I skull one, a real zinger, and he still snags it without knocking his teeth out. A golf ball screaming at his face, no problem. The lawn mower, run for the force field.

During the day he’s my shadow. He follows me everywhere and sleeps outside the French doors of my office while I work. But in the morning he wants nothing to do with me. Every day since we brought him home, somewhere between four and six, he heads straight for Kelly and noses his snout into the crook of her neck. If that doesn’t work, he climbs on for the full weighted mount, her giant squish, and waits until she submits with a scream. Now we’re all awake.

When Sawyer was alive, Theo was his barnacle, the one nipping and pestering and getting barked at for it. When we lost Sawyer in May, Theo was crushed. It surprised both of us how lost he was. Then Beau came home, and Theo grew up. He does for Beau now exactly what Sawyer did for him. Every nip he puts up with, he once handed out.

Beau

After we lost Sawyer, we were impatient. We were hurting, and so was Theo. But we didn’t cut corners. We searched breeders across the country and only looked at ones with a strong reputation. Sawyer and Theo had both come from within driving distance. This time we were willing to go a lot farther. Kelly looked at a lot of puppies and couldn’t connect with any of them. Then I sent her a link to another breeder. She studied the parents, then the two puppies that were left, and she knew. She couldn’t say why. It was his eyes. She flew to Dallas and back in a single day to bring him home.

He couldn’t replace Sawyer, no puppy would, but he made it hurt a little less.

We keep seeing Sawyer in him. He flirts with everybody who walks past and assumes they all want to be his friend. He can’t get enough pets. He stands between Kelly’s legs when he greets her, the way Sawyer did, and wants his ears rubbed exactly the way Sawyer wanted his. Every so often one of us calls him Junior.

We also call him The Barnacle. He’s stuck to his big brother’s side every minute, whether Theo likes it or not. Theo was the same way with Sawyer.

Theo also taught him wood chucking. As fast as I can gather sticks from the yard and throw them into the woods, Beau hauls them right back out, and the two of them chew them to bits. Between them they’ve turned our yard into a mulch pile.

There’s always something in his mouth, grass, a stick, an acorn, and his cheeks bulge like a ballplayer with a wad of chew. He drinks like a water buffalo, so you can imagine the water bowl afterward. On the trail he’s a Hoover. A French fry, a peanut, no matter how moldy or soggy, he knows he has to get it down before mom and dad catch him.

And then there’s Carl. Beau will be curled up next to you, soaking up every pet, blissed out. Then, out of nowhere, his face scrunches up like a bee just landed on his nose. One lip twitches, one eye squints, and for a second he looks like a grumpy old man who just remembered something that annoyed him. Then it’s gone, and he’s nudging your hand for more. “Oh, Carl.”

When our kids are home and hear us say it, they always ask, “Why are you calling him Carl?” We explain that Carl the Snarl is Beau’s other personality, and he shows up now and then to remind us how ferocious he can be. They smile politely. Ten minutes later we hear them laughing out loud, because they’ve just met Carl for themselves.