I am participating in the “April Blogging From A to Z Challenge” for 2018. Except for Sundays, but starting with Sunday April 1, I will be writing a post each day in April. Working through the alphabet, by the end of the challenge I will have posted 26 writings.
This Dog
I was newly separated from a 27 year marriage and living alone and on my own for the first time in my life. As you might imagine it was a challenging time filled with extreme emotional ups and downs.
My children were grown and off on their own life’s explorations.
As I reflect back on that time, I now understand that among the many emotions I was experiencing, one of the strongest was the emptiness of my once filled nest.
Yes, I was feeling a freedom exhilaration. I felt the lightness of only having to care for myself. I could choose to eat dinner for breakfast and vice versa.
But I also felt an overwhelming loneliness. Something I had never experienced before in my 40 plus years.
I just wanted to look. My new friend and I were on the way somewhere else when I spotted the doggies in the window.
“Would you like to hold one?” she said.
Of course I did. That one in the corner of the wriggly puppy filled pen, the one the others didn’t want to play with, the smallest of the bunch, she’s the one I wanted to hold.
We took her home and I felt like I was home again.
She was so tiny, she practically fit in the palm of my hand.
Sadly, she was too small and as I found out later, she had been taken from her mother too soon. I had her for one short week. She didn’t make it. I still get tears in my eyes when I think about that little one. A hard lesson learned about how certain pet stores acquire their puppies.
After that heartbreaking experience, I felt sure that I never wanted to go through that again. But I couldn’t stop thinking about how much that small helpless creature added to my life in that one short week.
Three weeks later we were on our way, out to the country. I had spotted an ad, by a breeder of Maltese puppies.
As we pulled off the road, onto a long winding driveway, we passed by a kid hanging up side down on the branch of big old oak. Out in the field two more kids were racing around in the fields on a big old tractor. A couple of deer were grazing off to the side of the big old farmhouse.
A tall woman greeted us as we got out of the car.
She was dressed as I imagine a farmer would be, in denim overalls and plaid flannel shirt. Her curly hair loosely tied at the back of her head. She had a pretty freckled face and bright welcoming eyes.
“Let me show you the pups,” she said.
The pen was in the back yard of the house. Inside of the pen were two white fur balls. One was wildly barking and jumping on up on the side of the pen. “Pick me!” " Pick me!”
The other one was smaller, almost cowering in the corner.
The woman opened the gate to the pen, and the crazy one came bolting out. He ran up to us. I held out my hand, he took a sniff and then took off in the other direction, running in circles.
The little one stayed in the pen. The woman gently picked her up. She snuggled into her arms, almost as if she thought she could hide there.
The woman put her down on the ground. I went up to her, knelt down and put my hand out. She timidly came up to me. All of a sudden Mr. Crazy, came running up and started nipping at the little one, teasing her, trying to get her to play “chase me".
The woman told us we could have either one.
We chose this dog
The crazy one!
So sad when dogs don't make it. But glad you found a companion that's still with you.
ReplyDeleteYes, even though we only had the little one for a week, it was still heartbreaking. We are lucky to have our Rico.
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