...That's What She Said

I wanted a puppy for Christmas in 1999. What I got was demon spawn. Having always adopted strays and shelter rejects, I knew that letting a 6 month old Dalmatian (saved from death row at the Animal Control office) into my life was going to be trouble. However, I didn't expect her to consume an entire power drill, seven shoes and approximately 70% of the molding and trim of my house. Nor did I expect her to simultaneously growl at me and pee puddles the size of lakes, on my new carpet, at least five times a week. After about eight months, I put an ad in the paper and shortly thereafter drove her to a farm in Kissimmee in the pouring rain late one Friday night. As I sat looking at her in my passenger seat in some stranger's driveway, I knew she was my dog... for better or worse... till death do we part. I promptly backed up and headed home, never looking back. As my reward, Hershey decided to turn over a new leaf and become the world's best behaved dog upon her second birthday. After that, she went everywhere with me, she went to parties, she slept in a dog bed next to mine and became a fixture in my life. My friends generally expected her when they invited me over and a few threatened to steal her away from me. She was genuinely loved by all. When my friend Brian died of brain cancer a couple of years later, she allowed me to blow my nose into her fur for hours after collapsing in the middle of my tiled dining room floor. She never moved, she never wavered, she was there for me. And so it was for us. Whenever I came home from work late, she was there, patiently waiting to go for a walk and eat dinner. She adapted to all the changes in my life, moving from house to house, apartment to apartment, every year. Eventually I grew up... and she started to grow old. We moved to Daytona, I had a baby, we had a family. She was never jealous of my son. She was concerned about every cry or whimper from his mouth. She allowed him to lean on her as he was learning to stand on his own. She stood still as he grabbed her muzzle and kissed her nose. Even as her health declined, she remained as sweet and loyal as she'd been the past 10 years. As much as I miss her, the one thing that still causes me to break down in tears is the thought that my son won't remember her. She was the best single woman's dog I could have asked for, but an even better family dog... I just had a family a little too late for her. Holding her in my arms at the vet's office as the light left her eyes was the single most horrible thing I've ever had to do... I could barely get the words out to thank her for being such a good dog. I don't know when I'll be ready to bring another dog into our home. What I do know is that I'll have Dalmatian spots on my heart forever... and maybe one day they'll stop being so painful.