Boynton Beach Chronicles - Jerry Klinger (great book club books txt) 📗

but have not done it yet.


Thank God it is not Passover. The Rabbis have said that it is o.k. to give your dog non- Kosher food but not on Passover.

Norman has been part of our lives for two months now. He has doubled his weight to ten pounds and is quite a bit bigger than when he first moved in. It would have been great to have a nice doggie scale like they do at his veterinarian. I have to be much more creative. I pick Normie up and then get on the scale to check our combined weights. Then I put Norman down and get on by myself. Getting on the scale by myself and checking my own weight is something I have avoided for some time. It is almost traumatic. I prefer to think the washing machine is shrinking my pants. Getting on the scale to verify it is something I just don't do with any regularity. But for Norman I did it. I subtract the weight that that lying talking bathroom scale said was my weight, from our combined weights to get his. I am sure of Norman's weight but I am still convinced mine is wrong. We can't imagine life without Normie. He is so much fun.


One of the first things he learned to do was jump up and grab the end of the toilet paper roll. He takes off at a full run with the end of the toilet paper roll in his teeth and the rest unraveling after him. Within a few minutes the pup had toilet papered the house. With a flash of exuberance and youthful energy he proceeded to shred every last inch of the paper unless we can get to it first.

From across the house I hear the wife yelling, lovingly of course, "Normie No!" It is a cry that we both love to hear. We keep all the toilet paper awkwardly high above the commode now.
We never knew that the tiles by the shower were loose. Norman found out for us and quickly chewed up the wallboard.


Closet doors have to be kept closed. Shoes are forever missing. They appear attached to Normie's mouth as new chew toys that he throws in the air and catches and throws and catches and then bangs on the floor.

Puppy potty training is progressing slowly. With every month of age they say a dog can hold it for one hour longer than his age. I wonder if they meant that when a dog gets to be three years old they can hold themselves for thirty six hours without having an accident in the house. Heck, it is hard for me to hold myself for two hours without having an accident.

Cage training was recommended from the start. Sheldon, at the Puppy Palace, recommended a beautiful cage that only cost $69.95. By the time we left the store we purchased the cage, multiple doggie toys, special dog dishes, a retractable lead, a blue lead collar, a car cage and a book on dog training, Puppies for Dummies

. Sheldon threw in a small bag of puppy food for us.

Dutifully I watched the free video, Cage Training Your Pup

. The theory is simple – a dog will not mess where it sleeps. Wrong, if you have to go and go bad enough, you go -so do pups. Norman is better now.


How nice it would be to stay in bed and try and sleep, the wife's snoring kept waking me up during the night, this was a truly sleep deprived bad night. But it was 6:07 and I was late. I have a responsibility. I have a new baby and the baby needs to get out of his cage. He has been real good. He holds himself for the entire night and when he can't cross his eyes or his legs any tighter I don't want him to have an accident in his cage. That being said, having accidents outside his cage in the foyer, the family room, the den, the office, on the deck and anywhere else does not seem to count. The only thing possible is active, aggressive owner training.

Get up early, no matter what, and have my owner take me out for a walk. So, the first thing that I do is drag myself out of bed and stumble into the den where the cage is with the towel covering it to help let Norman know it is time to go to sleep. I pulled the towel off and guess who was still sleeping. A great big yawn greeted me shortly. The tail began wagging slowly, then with a furious pace as I struggled to get the tiny clasp on to his collar so we could go out for the morning business.

Out the door we went for a number 1 but no number 2 no matter how much I paced back and forth. Kvetching, I bent over and picked up the morning newspaper on the driveway, the Sun Sentinel nicely wrapped in a nice bright orange plastic sleeve to protect it from the rain. The Sentinel just oozes with the finest news they can print glorifying any Democrat politico of the day. Today it was dripping with Obama stories and how the Cuban Americans have forgiven Castro and love Obama. Yesterday it was slobbering how Minister Farakhan and Pastor Wright, both stated non-lovers of America and Jews, will not be spending the night as guests in the Lincoln bedroom of a President Obama. The story was crafted to reassure the massively uncomfortable Jewish vote. Most of the Jews in Boynton Beach have never voted for anyone but a Democrat since Franklin Roosevelt. This time might be different.


Recently we installed a gate to close off our small front yard. No matter how tired I might be, I get up every morning at 6 AM. I let Norman out of his cage to go outside to do his business. I have a technique worked out. I take off the towel that covers his cage for the night and open the cage door. Then we both bolt for the front door to let him out into the yard before there is an accident. The front yard is not much of a yard, just a small grassed area behind a low privacy wall. We had to have a $850 gate made to keep Norman in; a custom made garden gate that had to be approved by our community's architectural control committee.

If they had not approved the gate, I had every intension of walking Norman, very slowly, back and forth in front of their houses every morning to do his business. The gate was approved. As we both race for the front door, I fumble with the keys to unlock the door. Norman dances around the foyer trying not to do what he knows he should not do. I open the door at last. He zooms out to do his business. He then zooms back into the house to finish his business. Well, at least we are making progress…

Like any growing child, Norman needs exercise. The wife insisted that I need the exercise even more than Normie. That was hard to disagree with. It always looked funny to me to see some big guy walking his little dog on a sixteen-foot retractable leash. He should be walking a St. Bernard with a beer cask around his neck, or a Labrador retriever or something with a manly look to it. But there I am, a six-foot, 215 lbs guy with a belly being led by this little fur ball of a dog straining ahead of me on a 16-foot retractable leash. Wearing my discount Wal-Mart $10.00 tennis shoes with the red flashing LED lights in the heels and the toes that light up every time I take a step, I try to keep up. Norman and I love our walks together.


Our morning walks are never too creative as most of Boynton Beach is laid out in boring grid patterns, ½ mile down Pipers Glenn, ¾ mile up El Claire, ½ mile across Flavor Pic, ¾ miles back along Jog Rd. and to close the square ½ mile along Piper's Glenn and back into our community. Etiquette is to never let Norman do his business on a neighbor's lawn or walk way. If he does, I clean up after him. My rainproof plastic sleeves from the Sun Sentinel come into good use.

For some reason Norman has a favorite rest room stop, at the corner entrance to Majestic Isles. I don't know where he learned to read but as soon as he sees the Majestic Isle sign, he knows what to do there. His face takes on a strange look and he does what he does with a grin, majestically.

Two old women passed us on the street fanning themselves. They were complaining loudly about the heat, their children never calling and how wonderfully smart their grandchildren are. There I am, bent over invisible to them, cleaning up after Norman. A Yiddishe kopf told me to take some paper towels along to help clean the sidewalk. Only now what do I do with the Sun Sentinel sleeve, paper towels and Normans gift to Majestic Isles? There is no trash can anywhere. I needed one hand for the leash and periodically needed to switch hands as he changed from side to side while walking. I did not want to get him tangled under my feet. So I did what any self-respecting manly American dog walker does. I tied the poop baggy to my belt with an extra turn and continued sauntering down the sidewalk passing more walkers than ever before, the baggy bouncing on my side. No one commented on my belt talisman.


Considering this was Shabbat I found myself wondering about the eruv. Realizing I was outside of the eruv and carrying a dog leash became a halachic question. Was I really carrying it as it was attached to my hand? Was it a violation of Sabbath laws because if I did not walk the dog, it would be cruelty to the animal and to the wife having to clean up in the family room, dining room, kitchen, den or wherever. Should we move to an area that does have an eruv so I can carry the leash? But doesn't the dog carry the leash and what about the poop bag. Maybe that does not count as it was attached, swinging and bouncing from my belt loop. I should ask the JellO Rabbi the next time I see him.

I took Norman to a public garden the other day. I even purchased a small baby carrier strapped to my chest, just like a real baby. Norman faced out to the world, his little doggie paws hanging out in front. The guard at the gate looked at him and me and said no dogs permitted. I explained he wasn't a dog. He was a cute, very hairy baby. Dejected and feeling resentful that the woman refused to see how nice a baby pup he was, we went home to play in our own yard. The garden gate guard must have been anti-Semitic.


As Norman grew we began to think about his future and education. Thoughts of saving for his college did cross our minds but only for a moment. We had to comply with the mandated Jewish parental responsibility -teaching your child to swim. We have a pool in the back under the screened in birdcage. Our fear was that Norman might fall into the pool and, GOD FORBID, drown. We had to teach