Good Morning.
My daughter and her family just got a rescue dog, a Shih Tzu combo. They had been without a dog for a couple years, ever since their Springer Spaniel, Bailey, crossed the rainbow bridge at a ripe old age. They travel a lot for sports so they were hesitant to get another pet, but if my instincts are still intact, my grands, ages sixteen and fourteen, said phooey to that one. The new dog is named Todd, and my daughter brought him by at 8:15 while I was still in my jammies. That's a good way to meet a dog, pretty much in your basics although a dog doesn't care what you look like as long as you give off good vibes. Dogs are smarter than human people.
I like cats too and have shared four with family members during my lifetime. My late husband was allergic to cats but he loved dogs. On the night he called me after forty-five years, one of the first questions he asked me was if I had a dog. When he met my daughter for the first time, the first question she asked him was if he had met Martha - who was not known for her impeccable manners. After we had been married for only slightly over a year, Martha died on Lincoln's birthday, February 12th, and we had a discussion about the fact that she passed on a real birthday, not some president's day that was created to make for a nice long weekend. Jamie thought that a birthday was the most important day of the year. It was your own private holiday, he said, and it's a very fine thing to have a husband who thinks stuff like that. He got pretty misty when he talked about Martha and I was so bereft that I thought about joining a support group for people who had lost family members. I finally sent away for a book written by a Methodist minister who assured me that Martha was in heaven. So much for the lunkheads who say that dogs have no souls and cannot be with God. Jamie said he thought God would enjoy Martha a great deal. I appreciated that, especially with the manners and all.
Three months after Martha passed we got another Golden Retriever, a seven-week-old puppy. I had been combing the papers to find a litter from a good family and found one about an hour away. We drove on that May afternoon into the Iowa countryside to a farm that looked as if it had been sketched for a children's book. There were cows in the meadow, a flock of sheep with the black faces, and a lush spring lawn that sloped down to a freshly painted barn where the litter and their mother were housed. The father was also on site but was kept in a separate location because his wife was exhausted and didn't need his attentions for awhile. Jamie sat in the grass as five perfect little girls came running to him. I told him he could pick her out but he said that she would make the decision and so it happened. Four of the pups greeted him and left to romp elsewhere but one sat in his lap and never left.
We went through baby books for names and considered spices, flowers, musical terms, and famous women like Margaret Thatcher and Katharine Hepburn, but he finally said he wanted a name that had something to do with a ship because he was in the Navy and something to do with New England. Thus the dog was called Schooner that doesn't sound like a girl, but kindly remember that ships are thought to be strong, fabulous women. Hurricanes are now named after men, by the way. Fair is fair.
Schooner slept with us from the moment she arrived in our home. There was none of this putting her in a crate with an alarm clock ticking away or letting her be sad for even a split second. We didn't care what anyone thought about our parenting skills. We took her out several times a day and even into the moonlight to get a certain message across and she was housebroken in no time. She and Jamie were joined at the hip. She sat at his feet while he taught his on-line classes and jumped in his lap the minute he went to the couch. When he died, I was worried that she'd quit eating and sit by the window all day, but she has taken superb care of me. This is why people love dogs. And cats. In our family we now have four of the first and two of the second. And today is my daughter's birthday so it's a good day all around.
Best regards,
Elisabeth
Comments