Goodbye Beauregard Cartier

Goodbye Beauregard Cartier

Two months ago when Betty left us, I was certain on only one thing and that was that we would sooner or later get another dog to replace her. When Cecil left us it took Kim about two months to deicide she wanted to go in search of a new dog, and that’s when Betty came along. This time we were not inclined to act so fast because we are going on along trip in February, so we figured we would wait until after that and that Kim would be ready by then. But the universe rarely works off the schedule you think is optimal and it delivers what it wants when it wants to. We were in NYC last weekend when Kim got a text from Betty’s old groomer. It seems another client of hers had a neighbor who had a dog that she needed to find a home for. And so it began. She sent us pictures of a small brown poodle named Beau that was a year old and was more than the elderly couple who owned him could handle.

It took me a few moments to realize that we would be advancing our plan for getting a news dog by several months. Now all we had to do would be to work through the details. We scheduled for Kim to have a meet and greet with the pup on our first day back in San Diego from NYC. I was not planning to go due to an appointment for the Best Buy Geek Squad to come and replace the screen panel of my new 85” Samsung. But Geek Squad called early this morning and upended my day. I must admit that I was curious how you repair an 85” TV with scratches on the screen. It seems that these TVs are basically made in two halves, the back half and the front panel. Attached to the front panel is a one foot square integrated circuit board that runs the TV and then two flat speakers that project through the front screen and plug into the central integrated circuit with some flat cabling. There is literally nothing else in there. I was quite amazed. The two-man Geek Squad team came in, opened the set into its two halves, unplugged the integrated circuit and speakers and then plugged them in to the new front panel in about a few seconds. I had been amazed that the cost of repair only involved an estimated $87 of labor and that they could do it in my living room, but once I watched them do it, I was even more amazed at how easy it all was.

Once the new panel was in place and before they put the TV back on the wall bracket, they showed me that it was all working properly. They turned it on and voila, there was an eight inch swath on the right side that was black and not working. Oops. Yep, it was a bad panel. So, in another five minutes it was replaced by the old scratched panel and the new defective one went into the box for return to Samsung. They booked another appointment for the installation of the new panel for next week, apologized and left. The entire visit, including resetting my original TV on its wall mount all took about 30 minutes. Amazing.

What that did was free me up to be able to go with Kim on the pup meet and greet. She and I drove the 8 miles to where the dog owners live, taking about the plan of attack. We would not be taking the dog today under any circumstances, but would use the time to get to know him and convince the owners that we were good prospective parents. When we arrived, we could hear him yapping, which was not a surprise from what we had heard about him (he was supposedly a bit hyperactive and a handful). What was a surprise was that the dog looked very different than his pictures. We had expected a brown miniature poodle that weighed about 15 pounds. What we encountered was a 5-pound brown toy poodle that was a teacup right up until he outgrew the 2.5 pound limit for that designation. He was teeny and, quite frankly, pretty damn cute.

We sat with the elderly couple that owned him in order to both get to know them and understand the circumstances that caused them to need a new home for the pup. They were a nice couple perhaps in their late 70s and they were having some health issues and were clearly unable to handle this rambunctious little beast. He, in the meantime, was all over the place showing lots of interest in everything and everybody in the room. While he had been fixed, he was also full of beans in the sense that he felt the need to hump my right sneaker at every chance he got. He was not much for being picked up, but he seemed to take a liking to me more than Kim and he let me calm him down by petting him until he rolled onto his back to let me rub his tummy. Kim and the woman of the house kit it off on a sympathetic note and had a good cry over dogs gone by and she decided on the spot that we were the perfect parents for the pup. She did ask whether I was likely to hit or get aggressive with the little guy and once we assured her that we were not that sort of family, all that was left was to decide when we should take him. The man was clearly hoping that we would just take him today and be done with it, not in a bad way, but in an inevitable way. To Kim’s credit, she asked about what came with the pup and we were told that this $5,000 toy poodle came with a bed, a harness, a leash, a bunch of plush toys, a travel crate and a bunch of food and treats.

We learned that this couple had gotten the pup last Christmas from their kids to replace a dog of theirs that had recently died. He was two months old at the time and they spent a year not training him, but they chose to name him Beauregard Cartier in honor of their two prior pups named Louis Vuitton and Gucci Poochie. I’m not sure how we feel about having a dog named after bling, but we have decided to keep his name Beau and at 5 pounds and with lots of energy, he is a pistol and promises to be a lot of fun for the whole family starting this holiday season. The couple already had Beau all packed up to go and we sensed that it was probably better to just take him home with us today. It seems that their adult daughter, who gave them the pup, is anxious for them to find him a new home ASAP. It seems that he was into nipping the kids or something. They seemed to be a very kind couple, and they had certainly had dogs before (and probably would again in the future, I suspect). For whatever reason, we piled Beau into the truck with all his gear and took off with a quick wave goodbye. It was a pretty easy transaction overall and Beau seemed fine being carried into the car by Kim. He behaved the whole ride home and he seemed smart enough to know or sense that he was in transition. Kim took him with her out to the garage to finish wrapping some gifts and he just lay in his bed and continued to behave. Once we got him home it was already clear that he had bonded to Kim and he was uncomfortable when she left the room. He got over that and then we took him out for a walk. Beau has a very high-stepping prance about him, so he seemed to enjoy his walk and is ready for whatever is next. Our neighbor Shannon (K-9 Training) is over giving Kim some training tips so we can get him onto the right path from the get-go. Shannon tells us that we need to change his name from Beau since it sounds too close to No, so it seems we will go with Buddy (like Buddy the Elf) and say goodbye Beauregard Cartier.