How I Met My Dog
Life is Golden
(Originally The Percy Colson Saga)
It was a cool, sunny
December day in El Paso, Texas. The wind was blowing, as usual and my
husband and I, along with our daughter, were on our way to the feed
store to pick up dog food for our four dogs. We'd already tried once
that morning and found it closed, so finally, at ten AM, we were
headed back.
We had just reached the end
of our street when I saw a large flash of gold dart in between two
parked cars and shoot up a drive way.
“Another one?!” I
nearly exploded, El Paso was notorious for neglecting its animals,
and this dog was the second we'd seen wandering, and stopped for,
that morning. I wasn't mad at the dog for being on the street – I
was mad at the owners of the dog, having conjured up an image in my
mind of the poor thing being left out in the chilly night air.
My husband pulled the car
over and I got out carefully, quietly so as not to startle the dog. I
picked up the slip lead I habitually kept in the car and searched my
coat pocket for treats. None. I hoped I wouldn't need them.
I walked up to the sidewalk
and spotted the dog about 15 feet away from me, cowering by a closed
back gate.
“Hey, sweetheart. Where
are your people?” I asked softly. He was a Golden Retriever puppy.
He had eyes the color of melted chocolate, and even in his situation,
an undeniably bright smile.
“Do your people live
here?” I asked and got up to ring the bell. No answer. I went back
to him, closer this time. “Come here, baby.” I reached out my
hand and he crawled to me, half on his side, half on his belly, like
some strange animal from a sci fi movie. I leaned in and bridged the
gap between us, laid a hand on his belly and...
He pee'd on me. Not a
trickle. Not a stream. A river. He was terrified for whatever reason
and as I shook the dark urine off of my hand, he flinched. I shook my
head.
“Do you like to go
bye-bye?” I asked.
No response, no perk of the
ears or wag of the tail like my dogs would have. He placed his head
in my lap and I put the slip lead over his head.
“Come on, lets go see if
you have a microchip.”
I carefully loaded him into
our van and went around the corner and up the street to the closest
vet's office where we were told that there was no microchip.
After we got home, I called
a friend at the Humane Society where I had put in a ton of volunteer
hours. “Hey, so, I found a Golden pup this morning. About ten
months old, scared of his own shadow. No microchip, no collar,
nothing.”
“Put up found fliers, but
don't be too specific. If he's purebred people will jump trying to
get him 'back' when he wasn't theirs to begin with.”
My fliers read “Found,
Golden Retriever at Bainbridge & McCombs, please call Annie to
give details,” and left my number.
The next morning they were
all gone. I posted them again, thirty of them, all around the
neighborhood. By that evening, they were all gone again.
In my eyes, the silly thing
was just a puppy, but in someone else's eyes, he was, apparently a
holy terror. In the first 48 hours, he stole a fresh package of
bacon, destroyed a $200+ pair of cowgirl boots, ate half the contents
of my refrigerator, managed to knock down our two year old several
hundred times, scattered the garbage throughout the house repeatedly;
no matter how high up we put it, and destroyed the power cord to my
laptop. My husband was livid.
“You have to find him
another home.”
“We leave for Colorado in
a week and some change. There isn't time. By the time I have time to
find him a new home, I'll already be attached.”
I was already attached.
At the ten day mark, we
named him. My husband and I each wrote about 12 names on individual
strips of paper and I held them out in my hands for the dog to
choose. Carefully, gently, he sniffed the bits of paper and ever so
gingerly dove into the pile in my hand and emerged with several stuck
to his face, but only one in his mouth. I retrieved it.
“Percy,” I said with a
smile. “I think Fred or George would have fit you better, but
you've got the right shade of red to be a Weasley. Welcome home,
Percy.”
“Voldemort is more like
it,” my husband grumbled, and we both laughed.
And so he stayed. Percy is
now neutered and in classes to learn to control his excitement, but
he is well loved, less skinny, and has integrated beautifully with
our other four dogs. He loves to play fetch, lay by our daughter's
high chair an eat home baked treats. He is also still a counter
surfer extraordinaire, but we're all a work in progress, aren't we?
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