A Message form the OA Board – May 2025

    If you think your kids grow up too quickly, you’ll be especially disappointed with a puppy.
    I found one of my nine-year-old’s shoes torn up on the floor this morning; a victim of razor-sharp puppy teeth that went unattended by a human’s eye for a few minutes.
    That’s all it takes, by the way, a quick lapse in oversight with someone coming to the door, a phone call or a screaming kid, and it’s open season with those teeth. We’ve done a pretty good job. That was our first destructive event with this warm, fuzzy, wiggly that I can easily mistake for a stuffed animal.
    Tessa, a golden retriever, was 10 pounds as an eight-week-old when we got her, but now weighs in at 20. If there’s some strange genetic defect that doesn’t tell her body to stop doubling in size every month, she’ll be 1,280 pounds. in six months. So maybe Clifford the Big Red Dog was a true story? She’s already the size of a blonde lioness from my five-year old’s perspective.
    So having a puppy is a lot of work. There’s constant watching if you care about your things. You can do your best to make the house “puppy proof,” but there’s always something to gnaw on. A buddy’s puppy chewed a hole in his drywall and gnawed at some wood trim around a windowsill.
    Then there are the potty accidents in the house, as well as disruptions to sleep. I have flashbacks of nights with our kids when the puppy slept in a crate in our room, made noises in the middle of the night and we’d get up to let her out to go to the bathroom since she’s not supposed to do that in the crate. Of course, with our kids, we chose not to use a crate and went the bassinet route.
    So there must be an upside to puppy-ownership, otherwise Charles Schulz, the Peanuts creator who lived in Santa Rosa, wouldn’t have equated a warm puppy to happiness. How much is a smile worth?
    Everyone in our household gets a smile on their face any time they look at the fuzzy puppy with her antics. She always returns a wagging tail, loving eyes and will bury herself into your arms any time you kneel down to her level.
    We get to mold her and watch her grow into a good-natured dog. So you get love, laughter and a sense of purpose – they also start to lose those razor sharp teeth after three or four months.
    If you don’t have a puppy but want to see some and also learn about an amazing non-profit that was highlighted in the Netflix documentary, “Inside the Mind of a Dog,” take a free tour of the Canine Companions facility in Santa Rosa (canine.org).
    This organization, supported by the Schulz family, raises and trains service dogs that eventually get placed for free in needy households.
    One could be inspired by Charles Schulz’s work or by any other source of inspiration for this year’s 4th of July T-shirt design contest. Orinda, Moraga and Lafayette’s kindergarten through seventh grade students must submit their designs by May 14.
    Designs should include the words “Orinda,” “4th of July” and the year 2025. They must be hand drawn on 8.5” x 11” paper and can only have red, white and blue colors. The winning design will be printed on high-quality T-shirts that will be sold to the general public. 
    I look forward to seeing what our students come up with. A well-designed T-shirt is very likely to put a smile on my face, just like my puppy.
    Visit orindaassociation.com for more details.