Bentley was a golden retriever-collie-Labrador-? mix. He definitely wasn’t a purebred golden. We found Bentley online and when we went to meet him we should have turned around and left. Neither of us could do it. He was big, playful and friendly and his owners were desperate to find a new family for him.

Bentley liked riding in the car. We stopped on the way home to get a large crate for him. I waited in the car with Bentley while my wife went into the store. I patted his head, looming large from the back seat. I spent as much time talking to myself as to the dog. “This is going to be okay, we’ll be fine, he’ll calm down…”. I don’t think I believed myself.

We bought a pizza for dinner and when we arrived at home Bentley quickly searched his new habitat. He trotted back in the kitchen and helped himself to the pizza we left sitting on the counter. He didn’t even have to reach. His head was level with the pizza so he knew we obviously left it there for him. The beautiful pizza was gone in seconds.

Bentley had a serious biting problem. He wasn’t biting to cause pain, he was playing. But his biting hurt!! A couple of times I grabbed him and pinned him to the floor and said, “No!” in his face. Bentley’s interpretation of that was, “This is fun! Biting means wrestle time!”

Our house had a central wall area that created an open runway from the kitchen to the dining room, through the living and laundry room and back to the kitchen. When my wife was doing laundry Bentley grabbed a sock and knew how to stay just far enough away from her to make her chase him. He went to the opposite side of the dining room table and stared. What a pill!

One redeeming quality Bentley had was he loved to walk and was terrific on a leash. He didn’t pull until he was choking like some dogs. He let us hook him up and walked a comfortable distance ahead within the length of his leash. Walks with Bentley were pleasant.

The final straw finally arrived. I was playing with Bentley in the house. He had a toy we were tossing and chasing which ultimately landed in his big crate and Bentley wouldn’t retrieve it. He was scheming and I should have recognized it. The only solution was to crawl into the crate and get the toy for him, which I did.

I was no sooner in the crate reaching for the toy when Bentley the pervert jumped on my back trying to hump me with all the gusto of a super-stud in a corral of available canines. I started screaming “Get off me you stupid dog!!” and trying to kick at him with no effect. My wife was laughing so hard all she could do was yell, “Stop! Hahahaha! Stop!”

I finally was able to back out of the crate with this beast still thrashing and when I stood up he was so tall he hung on to my shoulders! I was still hollering at him and trying to get away when I gave him an elbow in the chest. The assault was over. So was Bentley’s stay with us.

We put an ad in the paper for Bentley and within a day or two had a better home for him. He moved to a farm with sixty acres to explore and another big dog to play with.

Bentley the pervert was gone. That was ten years ago. I wonder if he’s still running on the farm.