Lucky the Laundry Dog
Lindsay Bayford
In 2015, after persistent pestering, my husband finally relented and agreed that we could get a family dog. We had three kids to worry about already so getting a dog seemed irresponsible when the kids were little. Obviously dogs need a lot of care. We had never owned a dog before and so we wanted to get one that would be “easy” for us. If you’re already laughing to yourself then good—we’ve learned a lot since then. Regardless, we searched for our first dog with our heads. We wanted a dog that was hypoallergenic, easy to train, didn’t bark, was good with children, not too big, not too small…and so the checklist went on. I had a special place in my heart for poodles and my husband really loved Wheaton Terriers and lo and behold there was a cross of these breeds and a reputable breeder right here in the Okanagan Valley—so we were set!
Since me and the littles had been scheming about getting a dog for some time, we called our imaginary-some day-pretend dog Lucky, because we would be so lucky to have a dog and that dog would be lucky to have us. So when the little black whoodle (woo-dull) pup flopped down on my husband’s feet—he became Lucky!
It took about two days for me to realize what we had just done. We had just brought an amazing little creature into our family and at some point in my lifetime this animal would leave us. But it was too late. My heart was already completely in love.
Lucky turned out to be all of the things that we wanted in a dog! By happenstance one afternoon, he spotted a blond dog up the street and went crazy with excitement. It turned out to be one of his sisters—from the very same litter. Lucky introduced us and Milou and her family became new friends in our very own neighborhood.
Since Lucky was smart and easy to train, my plan was to have him pick up all of the dirty laundry off the floor that the kids left behind in their wake, and deliver it to my laundry basket. Unfortunately two things stood in the way—it turns out I am not especially skilled at training dogs (I cried after almost every training class we attended) and Lucky was obsessed with socks. He will still steal anyone’s socks that he can get hold of. And it has become a game for him—sneaking socks and taunting us with them. I think it’s his way of saying—”Hey folks, I need some freaking attention over here!” He always does it with a sideways gleam in his eye and a sneaky tail wag.
Happily for us, Lucky never chews or wrecks anything that he steals. When he was young we had a puppy gate to keep him in the kitchen area when we left the house but eventually we could trust him and gave him full run of the main floor of the house. We really wish that we had installed some sort of recording device back in those days because by the time we returned from an outing Lucky would have accumulated a pile of our things in his dog bed—running shoes, flip flops, bedroom slippers, hats, mittens, socks, and even heavy boots. At one point in his career as a collector he accumulated 27 items in one pile. We would love to know how he set about this task. Luckily for Lucky we realized that he needed a playmate.
By this time in our dog owning history we were not as picky or levelheaded. Love reigned. We soon rescued a chiweenie (chihuahua-dachsund cross) from a rescue group in Vancouver, and two years later we rescued another chiweenie—this time from a Dachsund rescue group. These ambitious small dogs have taught Lucky many things—namely how to jump over puppy gates and how to bark! None of them have managed to pick up laundry—although the youngest has a penchant for dirty underwear. But he takes them out of the laundry basket instead. Thankfully our pack of three are the best of friends. They now have a full room of their own, and Lucky’s collecting days are over—there’s too many other games to play now.