How I overcame the Winter of our discontent

'How delighted I was when after a week my husband volunteered to take Winter out to a dog park, where the pair of them had a good time.'[Photo by Wang Yan/ China Daily]

Wise counsel and cool-headedness keep a youngster in the family.

As soon as I brought Winter home I began to ask myself: "Have you bought yourself a lot more trouble than you bargained for?"

Winter is a one-year-old black labrador retriever. Labradors are the kind of dogs that many people, seeing them frolicking about in parks, drool over, thinking what a welcome addition they would make to any family. However, few realize how demanding they can be as adolescents, and Winter's previous owners had learned that lesson the hard way.

"We can't handle a big dog like him," they told me when I called at their home in response to a "looking for adoption" advertisement. "Please take him."

At that instant I felt pity for this handsome and playful boy, who clearly had no idea what was going on. All he wanted to do was to jump all over this new acquaintance and have some late-afternoon fun.

Right then he became mine, even if over the next two days I began to understand what the previous owners had been talking about.

The hyperactivity and boundless curiosity that Winter brings to life match the almost limitless helpings of food he manages to devour each day.

The humans in the household are eating? "I'll bark all the way through your lunch if you don't give me a bite."

Something is lying there that may fit into a dog's mouth? "I don't care whether it's food on the table, fruit in the refrigerator, tissues in the bathroom, or whatever in the trash can, it's mine."

Going out for a walk? "I will go wherever my nose leads me, and whoever is on the other end of that leash is coming with me whether they like it or not."

Nightmare

So Winter's first week with his new family in Guelph, Ontario, turned our lives into a nightmare. Not only was I exhausted from having to keep a constant eye on him in the house and from the physical exertion of keeping him in tow outside, but the other member of the household, my husband, turned out to be no match for him.

"You've got to do something about him," he says. "Otherwise I don't think I can work from home anymore."

The steely look in my husband's eyes told me that he was not saying this lightly. But rather than feeling apprehensive, sad or resentful, my overwhelming feeling was one of guilt. How could I possibly have failed to think through the consequences of having a dog that could barely keep still for a minute living under the same roof as a first-year PhD student who needs to sit at a desk 10 hours a day bringing all of his mental faculties to bear to the task at hand?

I love this man, and I certainly did not want to give up one of the privileges of our current lifestyle, where we could spend as much time together as possible. I was also sorry for not seeking out his thoughts before I decided to take Winter home.

So on day seven of this trial, a Sunday afternoon, Winter sat in front of me, his eyes as innocent at those of a baby but the rest of his body as truculent as ever, refusing to go back into his crate. My feelings about having adopted him were now more confused than at any time since he first came through our backdoor.