“Buddy the Dog Don’t Like Thunder”




Before we lived in North Carolina full time, we’d come down now and then to visit Jamie's family. On one of those trips, my stepdaughter did what every parent secretly fears during a casual visit to the animal shelter—she found the one. That dog, Dixie Doodle, turned out to be everything you’d want in a mutt: sweet, loyal, a little weird, and sporting a natural mohawk that said, “I ride shotgun.”

Jamie, my wife, pulled the ultimate animal lover move. She got Dixie’s “brother” too.

Now, there’s an expression in the car business when someone gets totally hosed in a deal—“they got put together.” Well, if you want to “put together” Jamie, all you need is a sad animal story and a slightly guilty conscience. The woman mentioned Dixie and Noah were found in a trash bag together and vultures were eating a deceased sibling. That’s how we ended up with Noah, Dixie’s alleged sibling and the canine equivalent of a broken smoke alarm: constantly going off, especially before a storm.

Noah doesn’t like thunder. Scratch that—Noah senses thunder the way birds sense magnetic fields. When the barometric pressure drops, he starts pacing like a caffeinated security guard. One thunderclap and he turns into a whimpering, floor-dancing, room-circling wrecking ball. We’ve tried ThunderShirts, CBD oil, aromatherapy, calming music—short of hiring a dog shaman, we’ve thrown the book at it. He is… unfixable. But he’s family.

Anyway, I only told you all this to prep you for a dog-meets-body-shop story that takes the thunder cake.

I was working at a high-end shop in Ridgewood, NJ—you know the type of place where Range Rovers and Lambos share curb space with cappuccino shops. A woman pulls up in a beautiful BMW 5 Series. She says she needs an estimate, unsure if she’ll go through insurance. “Depends on the price,” she says. Fair enough.

I grab my clipboard and ask her where the damage is.

She opens the driver door and says, “All inside.”

That’s… not normal.

I stick my head in and I swear, it looked like Freddy Krueger’s dog had gone off in there. The headliner? Shredded. Seats? Torn to confetti. Steering wheel? Bitten. Seatbelts? Frayed into ropes. Door panels? Looked like they’d been through a wood chipper.

“What happened?” I ask, already knowing I’m about to hear something wild.

She tells me she left her golden retriever, Buddy, in the running car with the AC on while she ran into her office for just 20 minutes. During that time, a thunderstorm rolled in—and apparently Buddy has a little Noah in him. He went full prehistoric wolf mode and tried to fight the thunder with his teeth.

It was thousands in damage. I stopped even trying to soften it. “This is an insurance job,” I told her. She was stunned. I grabbed her a fancy bottle of mineral water while she called her agent.

By the time we priced everything—leather seats, door panels, headliner, steering wheel—the bill came to nearly $20,000. The car was totaled.

So here’s your takeaway:
Don’t leave your dog in a car, even with the AC on.
Especially if your dog hears thunder like it owes him money.

Because Buddy the dog don’t play. And Buddy the dog don’t like thunder.

Until next time—keep your bumpers intact, your dogs indoors, and remember: some losses come with fur and fangs.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Bernie Story (How I Kicked Bondo Dust at a Mentor and Still Got Life Advice)

Image
There’s a saying: when the student is ready, the teacher appears. I was ready. And Bernie Obry appeared—with a red pen, a calm demeanor, and an uncanny ability to turn damage estimates into life lessons. I met Bernie in Poughkeepsie, back when the shop was bursting at the seams with talent, sarcasm, and Olympic-level dysfunction. Bernie managed the GEICO account and oversaw the overall flow of the shop. I handled State Farm, a rotating cast of misfit insurance companies, and cash-paying customers who “knew a guy” and wanted to settle up in quarters. From the jump, I was told to run my estimates by Bernie before finalizing them. He didn’t just review them. He graded them—like a junior high English teacher burning through a stack of overdue Huckleberry Finn essays. Out came the red pen. Lines were slashed, totals adjusted, margins filled with comments like SEE ME AFTER CLASS. It was humbling. But it made me better. We were opposites. Bernie read GQ . I read invoices I dropped mu...
Read more

10 Pounds of Vacation in a 5-Pound Bag: The Art of Overpacking With Kids, Dogs, and Boogie Boards

Image
Packing for vacation is easy. Said no one with a big family, five dogs, and a 3-row SUV ever. There’s an art to it. A science. A delicate balance between geometry, physics, hope, and delusion. And in our case, just enough chaos to keep things spicy. Let me paint the picture: we had seven passengers. Five dogs minimum. A Ford Expedition that, despite its name, was not designed for actual expeditions. And a family that couldn’t travel light if their lives depended on it. Let’s start with the girls. Now, I love my daughters. I would do anything for them. But these women pack like they’re fleeing a war zone and heading into a five-season reality show. Alida once packed two full suitcases, a duffle bag, and a backpack for a five-day trip. Five. Days. I asked her what was in there. She said, “Options.” I said, “What are you, a pop star on tour?” Meanwhile, Jamie’s trying to fit the dogs’ food, treats, travel crates, blankies, and “special bowls” because God forbid they drink out of ...
Read more

Where the Water Falls (Because Even Small Ripples Can Reach Far Places.)

Image
I graduated today. No cap, no gown. No champagne pop or emotional slideshow. Just a cheesy little Teams ceremony, a few Little jokes, with the team that went through so much together in short time, and a quiet moment when they said we were done. Cohort training complete. They released us into the wild. So here I am—on the porch, watching the water drop from Jamie Lee’s little waterfall. There’s sunlight on my feet. No Team pings. No breakout rooms. No scripted claim scenarios to run through one more time. I thought I’d feel something bigger. A spark, a fire, some kind of “next chapter” energy. But what I feel instead is stillness—and maybe that’s the point. We’re all so conditioned to chase the next thing. The hustle. The grind. But maybe this little moment—graduated, unplugged, sitting in the sun with a homemade DIY waterfall and a fake diploma—is the actual reward. A couple months ago, after more than a decade away, I started blogging again. Not because I’m building a brand or...
Read more