Who Was Really The Lucky One?
We almost brought home a pup when our daughter was 18 months old and I was pregnant with our son, Adam. At the last moment, we realized that this was probably not such a great idea. So we used the deposit for things our mischief-making, but much loved cat Snowy could use.
Our daughter Sarah was crushed. My husband told her that when we moved to a house and had a bigger yard that we would definitely get a dog then. We didn’t plan on moving for several years. But as life and Murphy’s Law would have it, we would up moving a year later. Sarah had learned how to take the safety gate off the stair case! So with her 6 month old brother in tow-we moved to a ranch-style home-quickly.
Sarah-always smart as they come-reminded my husband of his promise about 3 days after we moved in! How could she possibly remember something like that, we’ll never know. But a promise is a promise. Off we went to a local pet store who had advertised that they had some “mutts” for sale-$25!
When we got to the store there were 6 pups. According to the girl standing by the pen they were German shepherd/ terrier mixes. All but one seemed pretty big. All four of us looked at the runt; she was all black and was being kind of bullied by her siblings.
Guess who went home with us? The little runt. We bought food, a collar, a leash and vitamins. Upon getting the kids into the car, we realized we didn’t have the cat cage with us, so we improvised; she went home in the hole of a Kleenex box! Talk about tiny!
As soon as we got in the door, we took her out to the yard and she did her business. Then we took her in to introduce her to Snowy. She was not pleased. While Sarah was her baby, she accepted Adam, but this ball of fur was not what she had in mind! It took her about a week to stop giving “Lucky” the evil eye.
Yes, we named her Lucky. Turned out to be quite the appropriate name. As time went on, she went from being able to be held in the palm of our hand to become 70 pounds of sweetheart. One day her ears stood up, we thought “how cute, that must be the shepherd in her”. A few weeks later, she went to get a caress from my husband and a paw the size of a softball greeted him!
At about 6 months, we almost lost our darling when we had her spayed and she wound up with a post-operative infection. Fortunately, we rushed her in to our vet’s and with a couple of nights in the hospital, antibiotics and some heat therapy, she pulled through.
Lucky.
A few months after that, she started limping and crying. Poor thing had hip dyplasia. We quickly saved up our pennies and had the much needed surgery done-only to again almost lose her to a post-operative infection. This time it wasn’t a couple of days in the hospital, but almost a week. Then she became depressed. She almost died from that as well. The kids and I visited her a couple of times a day-hand feeding her homemade hamburgers. We cried after every visit, we felt so bad. Even Snowy kept looking around the house for her.
When she finally came home, she wouldn’t use her foot. I started my own version of physical therapy. Slowly, she began to use all four paws and became quite the walking buddy for me.
As the years went on, Lucky became a “day care” dog for my business. She protected not only our kids, but the daily additions as well. In fact, if a parent smoked (which she hated) she’d bark and show teeth to keep them away from the kids!
At age 12 her companion, Snowy, who at one time wanted no part of her but now shared a bed, passed away. She was devastated. Her own health started to become fragile. At age 13 we lost our Lucky. We cried buckets. In fact, even though we adopted a rescue we named Sunshine a few months later, we still could swear we saw Lucky’s soul hanging around.
If you could see me writing this, you’d see the tears of missing her run down my face, even now 10 years later. That’s just how lucky we were to have her in our lives.
Carine Nadel is on The Reader’s Advisory Panel of Woman’s Day magazine and has had numerous articles and recipes published both on various websites and print publications. To read more of her work, log onto: http://www.Carine-whatscooking.blogspot.com
Tags: family, heartfelt heartbreak, lucky, missing
