(Waiting by the phone)
We lost our beloved Peg. The scared, scruffy,
and abandoned
miniature
poodle we had taken into our home sixteen years ago was gone.
Blind,
deaf, incontinent, she had finally lost her sense of balance and
nothing, to her, made sense anymore. She had grown up with our
kids,
she had driven all over the country with us, and now it was time
for her
to sleep. That night we slept, too, after crying and saying, never,
never again.....
Well, that lasted about six weeks. Every morning my husband
would read
the classifieds, and I noticed his eyes would veer over to the
'dog'
section. Hm, he's just curious, I thought. One day, I was visiting
a
friend in the next town and passed the county animal shelter.
Suddenly,
my car malfunctions! It swerves, out of control! Right into the
shelter parking lot! Well, I thought, as long as I'm here.....
Lots of
poor little doggies. Some I petted, some I took for a walk, but
nothing
really 'clicked'. For the next month I haunted the shelter, waiting
for
a dog that could be ours.
(Waiting by the phone)
One morning my husband looks up from the
paper and says, 'You
think we
oughta get a dog?'. Startled that he had given voice to my hidden
thoughts,
I start crying, no, bawling, and at the top of my
lungs yelled, 'I wanna dooooooooooog!' Hubby goggles back, 'Oh,
ok.
What
kind?' We don't know from dogs. We're not really 'dog' people.
We are
a one-special-dog people. 'There must be hundreds', I say. So,
off to
the bookstore to get one of those 'breed' books. We had our
parameters: Even though we live out in the country on twelve acres
we
needed a dog for extended lap time, one that would fit on the
boat and
the snowmobiles, nothing too high-maintenance ('We ain't gettin'
one a
them foo-foo dawgs', says hubby. Yes, we live in Redneck Central).
We
also wanted a dog that would live a long, long time.
(Waiting by the phone)
One last trip to the shelter, just to
say 'thanks' to all the
wonderful
people who work there, before beginning our breeder trek,
when.......Hey! What was that! That's no dog, that's a sculpture!
His
name was Zack, and he was going home, thank goodness. After a
two day
jaunt chasing a lovely Maltese in heat, Zack was pooped, and his
daddy
had come to get him. I asked the shelter person, 'What kind of
a
creation is that? (click) 'Oh', she said, 'That's a Miniature
Schnauzer.' (blaring of heavenly trumpets)
(Waiting by the phone)
It's funny how you can look at a thousand-thousand
dogs, but
when the
right one comes along, you know it. Hm. Not much different from
finding a spouse, is it? The strange thing was, we knew we had
found
our dog, but we hadn't even seen it yet! We called the breeder
lady.
She had two little girls and one little boy, but they were all
spoken
for (heartbreak). If, however, the people didn't show up as they
had
promised (yessssss!), she'd give us a call. An hour goes
by. Two hours. Evening. Morning.
(Waiting by the phone)
IT RINGS!!
To be continued.....