The Best

Do you know the expression, “constant companion?” Of course you do. But have you ever had one? Constant is a lot of time, and anyone who had a constant companion might have had reason to be annoyed with theirs from time to time because of their unrelenting presence. I was pretty sure I would.

But there I was, retired and living with my husband in a small home in the country with, of all things, a dog door leading outside to a dog run with a gate and that opened onto five acres, mostly fenced, of oak trees. We hadn’t lived there for very long when we just knew we had to get a dog. How could we not?

We’d pretty much always had them with kids growing up, and all of them had been good dogs. The last one died while our daughter, our youngest, was away in college, and that daughter was now a parent herself, so it had been a long time since we owned a dog, and never without kids.

I went on Craigs List and saw an ad about a dog with a photo of a tan mixed breed dog with a white streak on her face, golden eyes, and freckles. So, I wrote to Ben and told him a little about us. He wrote back, sounding optimistic, and assuring me she was a sweetheart. They wanted a hundred dollars because they had found her in sad shape along a road. She had a wound on her back leg where a wire had been wrapped around it. She must have gotten lose. She also had fleas and heartworms. They had spend $700 to have her spayed and treated for her ills and had her for almost a year. They liked her but had two other dogs, so they crated “Potato” most days all day while they were at work. They rightfully thought she needed and deserved a better situation. And a new name.

So, we made arrangements for Ben and Lola to bring her to us for a meet and greet. She was well behaved, but honestly didn’t seem to have much personality, and I wasn’t sold. I didn’t fall in love. My husband was happy with her, so I made the suggestion that my daughter bring over our six-month-year-old grandson. If she wasn’t good with him, that was a deal breaker. Sitting on the floor beside each other, Wyatt reached over and “patted” her head and pulled on her ear and she showed no signs of aggression. With that endorsement, we suggested they leave her for the weekend and let us see how it went. I don’t remember much about the weekend but I still kept thinking she just seemed simply resigned rather than enthusiastic. Nevertheless, I said we’d take her, and they were so happy with us and the life they felt she would have with us, they waived the fee.

So began our life with Penny. She was copper colored, and we hoped she would be our lucky Penny. It must not have taken very long before we bonded. And the bond grew. And grew. I’m not sure when she picked me, but she did pick me as her constant companion, and I was the lucky one. Being a dog owner as a retiree is a completely different experience than when I was raising kids and working. I’d never been around a dog all day every day. But this dog was not like any other dog in the world. She was not intrusive. She had no bad habits. She did not, however, want to be crated. We had thought she would be more comfortable in a crate, but she broke out of it, so we put it away. After all, we were home with her all the time, and she never had an accident. She went in and out the dog door with only a minimum of guidance, and I started taking her out into the property to explore.

She was, I will say, skittish with loud noises and always weird about eating with people around. She mostly ate after we were in bed and definitely would not eat if Ed was in the kitchen. We concluded that someone had either tricked, punished, or frightened her when she was eating,. She also was terrified of storms. Even loud rain sent her into a quivering mess. I got her a calming jacket and, holding her, I could feel her heart beating like crazy. Fireworks in the neighborhood were not her favorite thing. We didn’t hear her bark for over a year, and not until about four years in, did she defend the house with a good solid bark.

I placed bedding for her beside my side of the bed, purely because there was more room there, and that’s where she slept. I would get up in the morning, pretty early, and go into my office and write, and she would follow me and lie on the rug there and go back to sleep. If I slept later, she would nudge me that it was time to get up. Having a dog was my encouragement to walk, and we live on a country road with very little traffic. So it became our thing. I walked, and took her with me. At first, I put her on a lead but quickly realized she wasn’t going anywhere but with me, so we just walked together. However far I wanted to go she was obliging, and when I turned around, usually announcing, “Let’s go back,” she would turn around and head back. As soon as we did so, she would go into the woods on the side of the road a bit and do her business then catch up with me. She decided very quickly that walking with me was the best thing ever, so she began to let me know it was time to go out with a nudge or two. Oddly, she never “ran off.” It was as if she knew she had a good thing.

I puttered in the yard from time to time, sometimes picking up branches for the burn pile or tending to doomed things I had planted. I also have bird feeders and a bird bath that needs to be tended to. Besides, I love it outside, and guess who never, ever let me go outside without her? She would dance and run around me, pick up a baby football, throw it in the air, and revel in being outdoors–with me. If I sat on the porch and read or talked on the phone, she would stay with me, sometimes leaving for a bit to explore, but always coming back. My way of calling her was to clap my hands. I will never forget seeing her running full speed when I did that, leaping up the steps as if to say, “See, I came back.”

You have to have figured out by now that she is no longer with us. She was maybe two years old when we got her in January of 2016, and she died two days ago, April 5, 2023. It was very sudden–of Pericardial Effusion, probably caused by cancer. One day she was fine and the next day she was on death’s door. We took her to the Animal Emergency Hospital at the University where a very kind vet gave us the worst news he could possibly give us..

My best ever girl, my 24/7 constant companion, the easiest being to get along with, the most undemanding, completely unselfish, sweetest, dog ever. She filled our house with her loving presence, and it’s never felt so empty and sad as it does right now.

I walked to the mailbox yesterday and bent over double and howled and sobbed because I never, ever went to the mailbox without her. I told her constantly that she was such a good girl, and she loved and trusted me without question and without my needing to do anything but be.

My husband is disabled and grows more so with each passing year. It is distressing, and it weighs on me to watch him deteriorate. With Penny, I was distracted from my worries. So was he. She gave so much joy to both of us. She would sit in front of him and he would hold out his hand. She would place her paw in it, then her other paw and sit like that as long as he would. At night, sometimes she would go sit in front of his recliner and look at him until he said, “Well, come on up,” and she would get the top half of her body into his chair. for a while. During the day, she often slept on our bed. Since we knew she got up there — right where I slept — we just put a quilt on the bed. It was useless to try to get her to stop. When we were gone for a bit, I think it was her way of comforting herself that we would be back.

I honestly believe I was her whole world. I was gone once for about five days, and Ed told me she watched for me every day. When I got back home, her happy dance told me how important I was to her. If that was true, I have to comfort myself by saying that if I had died instead of her, she would think I abandoned her.

But, three days in, I look for her when I drive in the driveway because Ed would let her out and she would run to greet me, then she would dance out of the way and follow the car into the cover and stand by the door waiting for me. I look over to where her bed was first thing in the morning. I listen for her toenails on the floor. I want her back so bad. The pain is overwhelming. My best girl is gone–way too soon.

I’ve heard that the strength of the grief you feel is a measure of the love you had, and I believe that. Someday in the future, I’ll be better, but I’ll never forget my good girl, Penny.