A Different Drum: Taking the puppy polar bear plunge once again
Once again this winter I’ve watched video, seen pictures of and read and heard about people who dared to take the polar bear plunge. It’s a mystery why anyone would unnecessarily undertake such an action. I didn’t have a choice but to spontaneously polar bear plunge years ago when my former dogs, Chappy and Sousa, fell through the ice on a lake channel. However, even the threat of them drowning didn’t diminish the icy water immersion shock to my system. I couldn’t get warm or stop coughing for hours.
Outside of needing to make emergency rescues, anyone with common sense should instead don their warmest clothes and park themselves in front of a hot fire, with their hands cupped around a warm beverage — which is about the closest we northbound humans can get to hibernation.
So why do people insist on foolishly polar bear plunging, some annually, when they know exactly what they’re going to be putting themselves through? Are they driven by bragging rights, cabin fever or a combination of stupidity and insanity (doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results)? Good question. I’m not sure I can answer it, myself.
“So I did a thing ...” is how it was described in the Facebook post of a friend who about a month ago got a newly minted German Shepherd puppy to join the dog she’s had for a few years. My first thought was that no matter how cute the puppy, my friend must be a glutton for punishment, as it’s no secret puppies are an immediate shock to your lifestyle — just like the polar bear plunge.
There’s also a lot of work and training involved, plus the element of destructiveness. I should know. My kids and I just spent the past 14 months house-breaking and rule-teaching their two puppies, which resulted in considerable brokenness and ended up being an education for all involved. While things have settled into more calm of a rhythm where the now adolescent pooches are concerned, there remain occasional lapses in judgment on both their parts and our parts that take us back to square one faster than you can say “who chewed the corner of the piano bench?”
So you can imagine my surprise when, just two weeks after my friend got a puppy, I found myself signing up for the same. Not a puppy from the same litter or from the same breed, but from a much more mixed breed from a situation where the parents had been allowed to indiscriminately mate. Great. I contacted the couple that had stepped in to care for the puppies after I saw their social media post about the litter.
Truth told, I’d been looking to get another dog for our household, as my son will be taking his dog, Fennec, with him when he gets married and moves into his own house next month. There, Fennec gets to romp with my son’s wife’s dog, Winnie. That leaves Fennec’s sister, Copper (my daughter’s dog), home alone to play with the cats, which isn’t anyone’s idea of a good time. In Fennec’s absence, Copper mopes and watches out the window for her return.
Neither dog realizes new puppy “Gus” is being groomed to be Copper’s replacement daily companion. After the initial standoffishness, both Copper and Fennec have warmed to him and consciously softened their rough-housing for his sake. Gus follows the older dogs everywhere, nipping at them, which sometimes irritates.
My son took some hysterical video of the dogs’ mouth-to-mouth combat and three-way wrestling matches on our family room couch. But it’s not all fun and games: Copper and Fennec frequently vie for the puppy’s allegiance. They also squabble over one another’s food, toys and attention from us. In other words, Gus is being socialized to fit right in with our family culture.
Simultaneously, I’m being re-socialized. Yesterday I dealt with Gus shredding the mat in front of the kitchen sink and carrying off my shoes. When he was quiet for too long, I found him stripping the decorative piping off a recliner. Brrrrr! It’s hard to thaw from this polar bear plunge so close on the heels of the last one!
— Kristy Smith’s Different Drum humor columns are archived at her blog: diffdrum.wordpress.com.
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: A Different Drum: Taking the puppy polar bear plunge once again
