THE DOG THAT CHOSE ME

Fifteen years ago this past March I went to the vet's office for something, I don't remember what but I didn't have a pet with me. While waiting for whatever it was I read the notices on the bulletin board and spotted a 3x5 card which said "Free Puppies" and a phone number. My current dog at the time was Genevieve who was about ten years old and slowing down, and I thought that a puppy might just pep her up a bit. So, I called the number, got the address and went by to take a look. There were eight puppies: some were a delightful brindle, a solid black one, some brown, some were spotted. I sat down on the ground to get a closer look as they trotted over to check me out as well. The family giving the puppies away had given all of them Biblical names such as Malachi, Obadiah, etc. I had my eyes on one of the brindles as they were really pretty. They took turns getting petted and then trotting away. Then the black one came over, took a few pats, and proceeded to climb up in my lap, licked my chin, then turned around to face the others as if to say, "This one's mine." And so I was. They told me her name was Grace, but it didn't seem to fit her clumsy puppy meanderings. Genevieve was not much impressed with my gift, and the two of them never became friends which made life more difficult for all of us, and I had to keep them in separate areas of the yard. That's why you see Polly with her head stuck through the old rickety wooden fence which I eventually had to replace.

About a year later I signed us up for obedience training, but we had to drive seventeen miles to another town to attend the classes. I wasn't sure we would graduate that sixth week, but sure enough we did and received our certificate. It was the only way we could prove that she had been through obedience training. On the way home that evening my car broke down on the country road we were traveling. I attached her leash, grabbed my purse and the certificate, and we started walking. This was before the days of cell phones, you see. We hadn't gone too far when a pick-up passed us; then it stopped and started backing up. In the truck were one of the teachers from one of the schools where I worked and her husband, and they offered us a ride. Of course, I accepted. But do you think that dog would get in that truck. Not on your tintype. I kept saying "Come" until I was embarrassed to say it again. I finally had to get out and haul her up as she struggled to get free. I probably should have mailed the certificate back.

My former in-laws wanted me to bring her up to see them. They lived 75 miles away, and I knew they wouldn't be driving down to where I lived due to their ages. So, I agreed to bring her for an overnight visit. Did I mention Polly was subject to motion sickness? She threw up in the car one way or the other each week of obedience training, and on the occasion of the 75 mile trip she threw up five times each way. In spite of that she was always eager to get in the car and go.

When I moved us from Texas to Louisiana and faced a 150 mile drive I asked the vet to keep her the day we loaded the truck and picked her up on the way out of town. I also requested that he give her a sedative to keep her from vomiting in the U-HAUL I had rented, and did he ever, We sort of poured her into the front seat; she went to sleep and didn't know the thrill of the journey, nor hear the howling of the cat in her carrier. She managed to stagger to the dog run when we got here, but didn't really wake up until the next morning in a strange yard.

In 2003, having not learned my lesson previously, I brought home an eight-month old puppy from the Humane Society's Adoption Day at Petco to be a companion to Polly. Same song, second verse. However, this one has a happier ending. For ten months they barely tolerated one another, but when I went to Spain for three weeks and left them with Chill . . . well, let's just say they re-evaluated their situation. He said they slept on the kitchen floor and made a sort of circle, and during the night Delilah, my cat, a year older than Polly, who was also boarding there decided that she was going to stay with her family, and she lay down inside the circle they'd made. She had never associated with either of them before, and ever since they have recognized we were all in this together. What a relief.

We've had long walks together, hunkered down through a few storms, welcomed "the cousins"(Chill's dogs) when he had to be away. For the last year and a half we've even shared my Glucosamine Chondroitin when her arthritis made it painful for her to get up, and it helped. She developed cataracts and went deaf. She couldn't hear me call her, ran into things---including me---and sometimes her hind legs would just collapse or slide from under her. Great patches of hair have come out, but, thankfully, that doesn't show in this picture, and she didn't want me to groom her anymore, and she looked awful.





So today was the day. I prayed last night she wouldn't wake up this morning so I wouldn't have to do what I had to do, but the good old girl did. We drove to the vet's, and they asked if I wanted to drop her off or stay with her. I had to do what she would have done and stayed with her. We had to wait about 40 minutes, and then the doctor called us back. As he concluded the injection her eyes closed and her front legs slipped, and the doctor and his assistant gently rolled her on her side. He put on his stethoscope and began to check her, and in much less than a minute she was gone. And I drove home alone.

How do I explain this to Mack? He's such a worrier.