Let Freedom Ring

During the last three months, we've celebrated three birthdays in our house. Both kids aged up, which means I now have an 8-year-old daughter and a 10-year-old son (or as LJ puts it, he's a "ten-ager").

The third birthday belonged to none other than the Newfus, who managed to somehow make it through an entire year without ingesting something fatal or running into traffic on I-40.

It's hard to believe that it's been more than 365 days since God smote Earth - and in particular my house - with this beast.

Each of these birthday milestones has been cause for reflection, as my kids seem to mature a little and yearn for a bit more freedom each and every day. Julianna, for example, recently decided to move into the guest room so she could have her own bathroom. After the move, she promptly hung a bell on her doorknob and taped a sign to the door that said "Please ring bell to enter."

I forgot to ring once and was immediately admonished.

LJ has also been spreading his wings. He doesn't want me scrutinizing his homework or badgering him to get it done. He'd just as soon ride his bike around the neighborhood alone than wait for me and Indy to catch up. And just yesterday, when his sister asked him to play stuffed animals with her, he said, "You know, Juli, I'm getting older and I'm just not into that kind of thing anymore."

But as I struggle to accept my children's rapid ascent toward adolescence, I find I have the opposite problem with the Newf.

Desperately wanting Indy to have a little more of his own freedom, we decided to start leaving him out of his crate during the day for a few minutes at a time. After all, as a giant breed dog at 1 year old, that loosely translates into 15 human years. Surely it was time.

Indy's first few whiffs of freedom went very well. No damage was done ... unless you count that one time he bulled through the office door, dragged an extension cord out of a box and shredded it.

But we all know that cord was asking for it. 

So we continued with our doomed experiment. After he spent several successful nights and a half dozen incident-free stints during the day out of his crate, we decided to go for it. A half a day ... alone. With the run of the downstairs.

As I entered the house that evening, I breathed a sigh of relief. There was a gnarled piece of paper on the area rug, but other than that, everything seemed to be in order.

I found Indy stretched out in the dining room near his open crate and I stooped to praise him for his goodness.

It was a miracle! We had turned the corner! There was hope for this furry monster! There was a light at the end of the tunnel! There was ...

A foot missing from the leg of my dining room table.

Once the initial shock of my discovery wore off,  I gathered myself and shrugged. After all, it wasn't really Indy's fault that we put him in a situation he wasn't ready to handle. He just wasn't quite ready for prime time, and we pushed him to his breaking point. A point that included a hearty diet of very expensive cherry-stained wood veneer.

And just in case I needed a reminder, the Newf provided one I won't soon forget ... especially as it applies to highly destructive yet utterly lovable puppies.

Freedom isn't free.