Jim Tortolano’s Retorts: The new dog days of August

For me, a house is not a home without a dog in it.

Of course, sometimes a dog has so much personality, it can’t easily be contained within four walls and a roof.

I speak in these terms of Scout, the newest canine to land in the Tortolano household. In stunning succession, we lost two dogs to disease in the previous few months. Biscuit and Butter went to doggie heaven and it left a big hole in our hearts.

Admittedly, no dogs means a quieter, cleaner house with less time and money devoted to keeping your four-legged friends, but that seems like small consolation when you’ve had a furry pal barking for you when you come home for the last 20 years.

Scout is an Australian shepherd mix we found at the Orange County Animal Care Center in Orange, colloquially known as “The Pound.” She’s about a year old, which means she is kind of a teenager. Like many adolescents, she’s rambunctious, needy and with a great capacity for attention and love.

White and tan and pretty and soft as a stuffed animal, Scout (named, by the way, after a character in “To Kill A Mockingbird”) wins your heart quickly, and then you lose your shoes.

She will cuddle and snuggle with enormous enthusiasm, making you think you’ve found the perfect dog, then discover that she has eaten several pairs of your sandals, torn up the newspaper and chased the cat out of the house.

We have tried to put things out of her reach, but she’s long and athletic and can get to stuff you can’t imagine. Even closing doors doesn’t seem to help …. We have a dawning fear that she’s figuring out how to operate doorknobs, which could signal a major change in canine evolution.

The other day, I went into the home office (what we call the doffice, for den and dog office) to find that Scout had ravaged a pair of my shoes and my wallet. Interestingly, a conventional chew toy lay unmolested a few feet away. Grumbling, I salvaged what I could from the remnants (driver’s license passable, ATM cards a lost cause) then returned to the master bedroom where I discovered she had doubled back and dragged out my iPad.

Many profanations later, I learned that the tablet computer had suffered no damage, but it put me in mind of just how much our lives were changing. If eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, as Thomas Jefferson said, it is also the price of owning an Aussie.

Her breed, you see, is considered to be one of the smartest in the world of dogs. Like border collies, they are four-legged Einsteins who are easily bored. If their attention is not taken up with playing or herding sheep, they can be prodigious chewers, especially when young.

We’ve tried to wear her out, with walks, ‘rasslin’, Frisbee and playing ball. But let’s face it: two middle-aged people are never going to have as much bounce as a year-old herding dog. We may have to hire a 10-year-old boy or girl to come over and exhaust her, although it seems like many young kids would rather play Xbox than romp through a field.

Sometimes we wonder if it is really worth it. But then Scout will jump up on the bed, fling herself into our arms and lick our faces. It’s as if she’s saying, “Thanks for rescuing me! I love it here! And, by the way, I just ate a dish towel.”