Cody chewed up a lot of things those first couple of years, but his most notorious caper was when he attacked the bumper on my mother’s car.
Mom had an old Ford Tempo that wasn’t very reliable and one day my brother surprised her with a new Dodge Aries. She brought the Aries home and parked it in the grass until we could sell the Tempo and for some mysterious reason Cody took offense. Maybe because the Dodge was parked in his yard? My truck and Mom’s car were always parked under the carport, so maybe he thought this new metal beast was challenging him for part of his territory. I’ll never know his reasoning but the poor Dodge sure felt his wrath.
Cody started chewing on the corners of the back bumper. We never caught him in the act but it was obvious by the teeth marks who the culprit was. Mom noticed first and boy was she pissed! I tried everything I could think of to get Cody to stop. I led him to the bumper and said "No!" repeatedly. I painted it with Tabasco sauce. I even squirted him with the hose when I caught him near it, but it was all to no avail. He was a wolfdog on a mission: Get the intruder!
We finally sold the little Tempo and I moved the Dodge under the carport. Ok, I thought, maybe now he will realize it belongs here and quit chewing on it. A few days passed, and he left it alone. Whew! I took it to the shop and paid to have the bumper repaired. The very next morning there were new teeth marks on the bumper! Damn!
I tried cayenne pepper instead of Tabasco. I tried having a father and son talk. I went to the hardware store, bought 20 feet of light chain, and strung it around the car like a fence. Cody belly-crawled under it like a soldier going under barbed wire.
I was about at my wits end and out of ideas, then one evening we stopped by my cousin's house for a visit. Cody took off to play with Mark's dogs while we sat around the fire, drinking a few beers. I told Mark about the bumper saga and he commiserated with me, but we both ended up laughing about the whole mess.
"I've got just the thing that'll solve your problem," he said. He disappeared into the garage and came back carrying an electric fence charger. Normally I would never have considered something so drastic, but I had reached the point where I was willing to do anything to get Cody to cease and desist. I knew the shock wouldn’t really hurt him. I had been accidentally shocked by an electric fence once and the surprise of it was worse than the pain. Mark showed me how to hook the charger up and I took it home that evening.
Since the surface of the bumper was rubber, I needed something that would conduct electricity, so I covered the entire bumper with aluminum foil. Then I put the charger in front of the car, hoping Cody wouldn't notice it, and ran a long wire underneath to the back bumper, hooking it to the foil. I plugged the charger in, and could hear the slight buzz of electricity each time it pulsed through the foil.
Cody had watched the whole setup and didn't go near it that evening.
Well, that figures, I thought. I go to all this trouble and he’s going to ignore it. But later that night his curiosity got the best of him. The carport was right outside of my bedroom window and around three a.m., I heard a short little 'Yipe!' I knew he had sniffed the foil and gotten quite a surprise.
I felt bad for a moment, but after all that had happened, I had to laugh. I turned over and went back to sleep, content that my mission had been accomplished.
The next day I had a 'reinforcement' lesson planned.
"Cody, look!” I said, creeping toward the bumper with my hand out. When he saw me approaching the enemy, he immediately started barking. It sounded more like 'oof, oof' instead of 'woof, woof.' Malamutes rarely ever bark and wolves don't at all, so when Cody barked, he always sounded like he had a speech impediment.
Confident that he was watching me, I reached out and slapped the bumper with my hand. "OUCH!” I yelled and raced away across the yard with Cody hot on my heels. He ran like there was a monster in pursuit of us both and it was all I could do to keep from laughing! He kept looking back over his shoulder, fully expecting it to come after us.
I repeated our little exercise every couple of days for a while to reinforce the lesson but also to have some fun with Cody. His 'oof, oof!' warnings were so hilarious! He'd even jump up and down on his front legs to emphasize his point and I could almost read his thoughts... 'Fool! Don't do that! That thing is gonna bite you!'
Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do to keep peace in the household. Cody never chewed on any car parts again.
